


Rejection Sucks

by witchGirl (Unosarta)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Bondage, Druidism, Face-Fucking, Facials, Frottage, Kidnapping, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Magic, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Scent Marking, Scott is a Good Friend, Season/Series 03, Season/Series 03A, Stiles Stilinski is Pushed Out of the Pack, The Alpha Pack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:08:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 44,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26471632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unosarta/pseuds/witchGirl
Summary: Even if the pack doesn’t - doesn’t want him, Stiles needs to protect the people he loves. He’s not going to sit by while Derek Fucking Hale farts around pretending like he knows what the hell he’s doing. It’s not like Derek has a good track record of keeping himself safe without Stiles’ help anyway, how the hell is he supposed to protect Scott too.No, if the pack doesn’t want him, then so be it. Stiles will just have to protect the town on his own.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 60
Kudos: 847





	1. The Sting

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after Season 2, imagining that Jeff Davis did literally anything with the mountain ash scene in 2x8.

Stiles stares at Scott’s phone in shock. It’s not often that he finds himself at a loss for words - usually it’s too many words, all the time, even when he really needs fewer of them - but Scott doesn’t seem to notice.

He’s texting. Not that Stiles has a problem with texting! No sir, texting is a perfectly honorable past-time for a high school boy like Scott. Stiles would have no problem if he were texting Allison.

Though Scott and Allison are not together at the moment, Stiles thinks to himself. But the sight of Scott grinning to his phone dopily has been such a constant of the past semester that Stiles is all but having flashbacks.

Scott isn’t texting Allison. He’s not texting Isaac either - the text notification is all wrong, Stiles programmed in special sounds for each of Scott’s friends into Scott’s phone while he was third wheeling with Scott and Allison last semester. He just wanted to know who his best friend was talking to when they were hanging out.

He’s not texting the group chat - that Stiles made! - because Stiles isn’t getting any notifications beyond the r/nosleep new post ones he set into his phone after too many dreams of old men standing over him with bloody knuckles -

That’s not the point. Scott is texting. Scott hasn’t even noticed that Stiles has been in his own world wondering about texting for the past minute - according to his phone’s clock - and he’s not talking to Stiles either. It’s as if Stiles has disappeared.

Stiles edges around Scott where he’s sitting in Stiles’ computer chair, sitting up from his bed slightly to see around Scott’s shoulder and try to read what new person could have entered Scott’s life. Boundaries are for people whose best friend didn’t get turned into a werewolf.

Scott notices the movement, though, and twists to hide his phone from Stiles. Not before Stiles can see the title of the chat: “pack”.

Pack!

“Scott…” Stiles begins, warning in his voice.

Scott’s eyes widen. “I didn’t - you weren’t - shit, Derek is going to kill me.”

Stiles glares. “Bold of you to assume that you’ll survive to see Derek. What happened to -“

“Please don’t use that name -“

“- Hale and Sons Magical Hijinks Emporium?”

Scott groans into his hands, and Stiles takes the opportunity to grab his phone from where it’s lazily clasped in Scott’s fingers, unlocking it deftly as he skids out of his own bedroom with Scott on his heels

“What the fuck?” Stiles exclaims, furiously changing the text notification sound to one slightly off of the default tone. “Why is everyone in this chat but me? Even Lydia? What, are you going to ask her to cure every monster that rolls through town with the power of love?”

Scott tackles Stiles into the bathroom door, grabbing for the phone. They fall heavily on the tile, wrestling for control.

“It wasn’t my idea, Stiles! If you’re going to be mad at anyone go yell at Derek, not me.” They’re panting on the ground, Scott triumphantly holding his phone above Stiles’ head.

Stiles is sure his face must be twisted in humiliation. “Seriously? You went along with that? What the fuck dude.”

“I didn’t - look, he made a compelling argument. Also I’m not sure how to add people to group chats on iMessenger.”

Stiles sighs, scrubs his face with his hands, and falls to the ground in defeat. “Why wouldn’t you tell me? What are you talking about in there that’s so important to keep me in the dark about?”

“It’s nothing! You know we’d tell you about anything important, they’re just planning some stupid little get together for this weekend, we’d tell you if you were in danger.”

Scott means it to be reassuring, Stiles knows, but somehow his words cut through Stiles worse than the idea that they were hiding some new mystical threat from him.

They’re going to have a party. They’re going to hang out as a pack without him, because he’s not pack. They don’t care about him.

“What the _fuck_!” Stiles shouts into his hands, from the floor of the bathroom.

* * *

Stiles isn’t talking to Scott. Not that they were talking much before Scott stabbed Stiles in the back like his very own Brutus, but now they’re _really_ not talking.

The problem is that Scott isn’t even trying to make it up to Stiles. Normally when they get in a fight like this, they make up the next day. Within the week, at the very least. But that was when they only had each other. Now Scott has Isaac and the rest of the pack, and Stiles is all on his own.

He keeps his moping confined to the Beacon Hills public library. It’s safer there, even if it is filled with memories of his mom. Any time Stiles spends at home is sleeping or grunting half-hearted conversation to his dad in an attempt to cover up his broken heart.

He wants to imagine he’s being productive, researching herbs and the supernatural, but mostly he’s learning how frustrating it is to puzzle through Latin and Greek without Lydia to help him.

It’s not like he can very well ask her for help. ‘Hey Lydia, it’s me, that guy you rejected in favor of Jackson Fucking Whittemore, just wondering if you could help me do research for your pack, which kicked me out.”

It’s not really for their - for _that_ pack anyway. Even if he is kicked out - and he’s not sure he is yet - he’s never going to stop caring for Scott, and since Scott got his ass all wolfy, Stiles is in it for life now. No turning back just because the cool kids club doesn’t want him anymore.

Plus, and perhaps the more pressing reason for his research, the sheriff doesn’t know anything about the supernatural and it hasn’t stopped him from getting caught up in danger. Stiles still has terrible dreams about that night in the sheriff’s department, imagining endless scenarios where his dad dies instead of the deputies.

He has to keep the people he loves safe. No matter the cost.

* * *

Stiles paces in front of the Argent’s door in the late summer evening, trying to muster the courage to knock. _Gerard is dead_ , he whispers to himself over and over again.

Allison opens the door after ten minutes, not even bothering to be polite about it when she raises an eyebrow and asks, “what are you doing here?”

Stiles wrings his hands together, to make them less clammy and to make himself seem less freaked out by their current location. “I just uh - I just wanted to come in and maybe talk? To you, or your dad, really whoever wants to listen, I’ll talk to your fridge if it’s half as good at shooting as you are -“

“No,” she says, a gentle look in her eye that wounds him more than anything in her words.

“What do you mean, no? The Argent code requires you to teach any who come to you learning to protect themselves. You can’t just -“

“I can. We’re not going to train you Stiles.”

“Why the fuck not? I’d be a great Hunter! I’d be the best damn Hunter you’ve ever seen, I’d take over your stupid family _and_ I wouldn’t beat up teenagers.”

Allison furrows her brows adorably at the last part, but only shakes her head again. “We made a deal with the Hale pack. We’re not going to recruit any more Hunters on their territory. They even had us promise not to train you. Sorry.”

“They - _what?_ Why would they -“

Allison shrugs and looks back into the house. “Look, Stiles, I have to go. You take care, okay? Tell Scott…” she trails off.

“No. Fuck you. You don’t get to refuse to train me and then ask me to be your shitty little messenger.”

Stiles is storming off of the front step before Allison has the chance to respond.

* * *

The sheriff manages to corner Stiles during their dinner the following night.

“You hanging out with Scott next week?” He asks, faux casually.

Stiles is too fucked up over his latest rejection to think before he says, “no.”

His dad perks up, and Stiles knows he’s fucked. “Why not? You always hang out during breaks. I haven’t seen him around in a week.”

Stiles tries to think of a way to lie to his dad and comes up blank. Instead he settles for the truth. “He’s not - he doesn’t want to hang out with me anymore. He’s got - he’s got some new friends.”

Stiles tries to keep his voice even, but probably even their neighbors can hear the crack in his voice when he says ‘new’. He’ll have to just blame it on puberty.

“That’s - what? Are you sure? But you two have been thick as thieves since…”

“Yeah. Oh well, people change, you know? You can’t count on them forever.”

Neither of them comment on the fact that Stiles doesn’t change loyalties like that. His dad has to know better than to think that Stiles is ever going to be anyone but the kid who sees a little asthmatic Scott McCall on the playground and bodily throws himself in front of bullies fists to protect him.

They eat in silence for the rest of the meal.

* * *

Stiles decides to crash the get together Scott mentioned and get some answers for himself.

The problem is that he has no information. No where, no when, no who. Well, presumably ‘who’ is ‘everyone in Beacon Hills but Stiles’. And there is no way they would hold it at the old Hale house, or at the betas’ houses, which is why Stiles finds himself camped out in front of Derek’s new apartment in an undercover police car borrowed from the sheriff's department late on a Sunday night.

He leans low in his seat; he already carefully showered and rubbed lavender and mint on his skin to mask his smell - he read it in a book that mentioned the protective properties of Rowan wood, so he has to hope they know their stuff - but he’ll be damned if they catch him by the sight of his buzzed head. Stiles is running on fumes and a gallon jug of iced coffee, but he’s been trained on many a night of stakeouts with his dad when they couldn’t afford a babysitter.

When he sees cars begin to pull up, he sinks down lower in his seat, not even bothering to peek up over the sill. He waits until he hears the right number of cars - six - before he raises his head enough to watch the windows of Derek’s apartment.

It’s a loft and the action appears to mostly be centered on the second floor, so Stiles can’t really see much, but the lights are on. His curiosity is edging out his bitter anger, so he puts down his binoculars and steps out of the car.

He creeps up the fire escape carefully, casually, hoping that whatever is happening inside is loud enough that they won’t hear the creaking. He should have covered his shoes in socks like his dad showed him as a kid.

Still, he manages to reach a window unnoticed by any of the werewolves inside.

They’re -

They’re watching a movie. And laughing. There’s pizza on the coffee table - Derek has a coffee table, hah, Stiles thought the Alpha was allergic to furniture - and everyone is piled on top of each other on couches and chairs.

It looks. Homey. Soft. Warm. Stiles aches with his desire to be inside with them, sitting next to Scott where Isaac is and joking around with the rest of them.

He doesn’t see Derek, but he must be off brooding or polishing his eyebrows or something.

It’s a bitter taste in his mouth, the knowledge that he can’t have this. Scott looks happy and Stiles can’t begrudge him that, of course he wants Scott to be happy, but he should be happy with _Stiles _. Or at least he should look a little guilty that Stiles isn’t there to enjoy it.__

As Stiles pulls his eyes away from the window and starts to trudge his way down the stairs, heart full of bitter rejection, he notices a presence behind him a few moments too late. They place a hand over his mouth to muffle his shouting, and it’s a frustratingly familiar position. Why do the bad guys always have to be so intent on shutting Stiles up?

“Hello again, Stiles. How good to see you,” a familiar voice says, and Stiles can feel his heart sinking.

Peter. Of course.

“Lavender and mint? An interesting combination, I must say. Where did you learn that, I wonder? Even Hunters don’t bother with herblore anymore. Did Deaton show you?” Peter’s breath is hot against Stiles’ neck, and he takes his time asking the questions even with his hand covering Stiles’ mouth.

Stiles just rolls his eyes in response and knees Peter in the groin.

Peter lets out a soft whine, but his grip on Stiles only tightens. His smile tightens too, turning an even more menacing shade of friendly. His voice is soft when he says, “that was a mistake, boy.”

The noise from inside is suddenly louder than a moment before, and Stiles tilts his head up in Peter’s grip to see Derek with the door open. Shit.

Peter has Stiles drawn tight to his body, gross, and rather than looking disgusted or broody, Derek looks _mad_.

“Let him go,” he says, his voice a low growl, raising the hair on the back of Stiles’ neck. He flashes his eyes red when Peter takes a long moment to remove his hand from Stiles’ mouth.

Stiles flits his gaze between the two of them, posturing over him, and starts to back away down the fire escape to flee whatever kind of fucked up werewolf showdown is about to happen. Derek grabs him by the shoulder and drags him into the loft instead.

Where all of his friends - former friends? Were any of them really his friends besides Scott? - are staring at him. Open mouthed. In shock.

“Uh. Hi?”

Derek keeps his glare on Peter as he steps back and closes the door into the loft. Peter’s smirk fades into the dark of the night, but his blue eyes linger on Stiles. It’s some next level creep shit.

Derek turns and looks at Stiles, his gaze completely unreadable. “Why don’t you smell like anything?” Stiles does a little fist pump internally that the trick worked.

“Trade secret. Why is everyone here without me?” Stiles says evenly, keeping his gaze on the group and pointedly away from Derek, who is dangerously close to shoving him into a wall based on their history. Stiles’ ribs are still bruised from stupid Gerard Argent, so he really can’t afford that right now. He might whimper or something unmanly like that, and Lydia is _right there_.

The pack is looking anywhere but at him. Lydia at her phone with an uninterested look on her face; Jackson at the TV, which Stiles notes is paused, rolling his eyes; Scott at his feet; and Isaac at Scott’s feet.

“We don’t want you here,” Derek says.

Stiles wasn’t - he knows Derek’s an asshole, but he was expecting a _little_ more tact, if only based on how often he’s saved Derek’s life. Apparently that means nothing in the werewolf business. Good to know.

Scott raises his head and looks angrily at Derek, but the rest of them don’t even bat an eyelash at his statement. Jackson is even nodding in agreement.

Derek turns and gives Scott a look that quickly shuts him up. Stiles wishes Derek’s grip on his shoulder weren’t so firm, because he is desperate to know what on Derek’s face could possibly have made Scott decide not to stick up for him.

“Good to know. Glad to hear it. Fucking spiffy.” Stiles can feel the gears in his brain turning this information over as his mouth runs off on its own. “Cool. Cool cool cool. Great. Good to know. Derek, can I talk to you in private, away from your furry godchildren?” Stiles gestures at the betas.

Derek pulls Stiles up the spiral staircase that goes to a private room - maybe it’s the pack’s torture room, do they have one of those? - and he can feel eyes following his back, belying the earlier casual indifference. _Whatever,_ Stiles thinks to himself as Derek grabs at the torture room door handle, already giving up on the wolves below.

The torture room has a bed. “I’m not sure I’m ready for the sexy torture stage of our relationship,” Stiles says unthinkingly, filter completely gone.

Derek stares at him, mouth open slightly, before slamming his face back into a careful neutral. “Shut up.”

“Great way to start the negotiations there, Hale, you’re a certified charmer.”

“Negotiations?” Derek asks, raising one gorgeous eyebrow. Fuck, what, what the hell Stilinski, who calls eyebrows gorgeous?

Stiles rolls his eyes. “I want the bite.” It’s out of his mouth before he can think if it’s true. He’s not sure if he does actually want the bite, but if the choice is not being friends with Scott anymore and getting ripped as hell and being better able to protect his dad? Well, shit, he’ll do it. Stiles has always been a pragmatist.

Derek’s face looks horrified, then angry, and finally schooled again. “No.”

“Again, not a great negotiation tactic. You want to meet your opposition partway, give them a minor compromise. Like, ‘sure Stiles, I’ll give you the bite, but only if your dad okays it.’ Or ‘sure Stiles, but only when you graduate.’” He pitches his voice a little high and nasally to match

Derek’s and it’s a surprisingly passable impression. “Jeez, I can't believe you’re making me do your job for you even now, dude.”

Derek’s eyebrows are knit furiously. “No. How’s this for a compromise: I’ll give you the bite when hell freezes over.”

“Hell isn’t real, dumbass, though in the Book of Planes the ninth layer of hell that houses Lucifer’s soul is actually a vast frozen lake, so who knows, maybe we’re already there.”

“D&D metaphysics aren’t real either,” Derek says, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Now Stiles is the one staring at Derek and gaping. “Are you a secret nerd? Is that why you don’t want me in your pack? You’re afraid I’ll kill your cool alpha vibes by revealing your horrifying secret? I promise I can keep it to myself -“

“Everyone downstairs is listening,” Derek interrupts. “Jackson’s telling Lydia everything we say.”

“Well, there goes that leverage. It’s fine, it’s cool, if you don’t want to bite me I’ll just go find another wolfman who does. Peter offered it to me, you know, when he was all psycho, before I helped you rip out his throat. By setting him on fire. Honestly I think I’d be a great asset, I’m sure the wolf boys and girls would be clamoring for my hot ass -“

Derek gives in to what must be his primal instincts at this point and shoves Stiles up against the door. “No, you won’t,” he says, inches away from Stiles’ face, the closest Stiles has ever seen the red alpha eyes. “You won’t go to another pack, and you won’t get the bite from me. You really think anyone would want you in their pack? In their family? You’re pathetic. You have nothing to give to me - to us - that would make it worth having someone like you in our pack.”

They’re only the same words Stiles has been saying to himself for the two weeks since Gerard captured him, Boyd, and Erica, and tortured them in his basement. The same words Stiles has been telling himself since half of the sheriff’s department was murdered by Jackson, most of them people Stiles has known for all of his life. The same words he’s been saying since Lydia chose Jackson, a murderous were-lizard, over him.

So why do they hurt so much when Derek says them?

Stiles just opens the door and stumbles down the staircase and the fire escape, desperate to be anywhere but there, anywhere but a room full of people who heard the same words and think the same things that he’s been thinking about himself. Useless. Pathetic. Unlovable. He can hear Scott calling him, but Scott’s earlier silence is a betrayal too great to confront tonight.

He goes home in a haze and collapses in his bed, not even saying good night to his dad.


	2. The Resolve

If Stiles were a normal person, rejection of that magnitude would mean giving up. Going home. Trying to figure out how to have a normal life after being exposed to life-threatening supernatural creatures.

But Stiles has never been normal, and he sure as fuck isn’t going to start now.

Even if the pack doesn’t - doesn’t want him, Stiles needs to protect the people he loves. He’s not going to sit by while Derek Fucking Hale farts around pretending like he knows what the fuck he’s doing. It’s not like Derek has a good track record of keeping himself safe without Stiles’ help anyway, how the hell is he supposed to protect Scott too.

No, if the pack doesn’t want him, then so be it. Stiles will just have to protect the town on his own.

Starting with the sheriff’s department.

* * *

Stiles has worked in the sheriff’s department during the summer every year since his mom died. That first year, he and his dad were both a hot mess, and they needed the distraction to avoid fighting each other or crying all day long.

After that, they fell into it like a rhythm. The Stilinskis have always been good at prioritizing work over themselves, especially when it means protecting others.

So none of the deputies pay Stiles any mind when he shows up in the sheriff’s office that Monday. They don’t question as he stays late to place panels of Rowan wood he found in the preserve and carefully harvested with his dad’s fire ax - not particularly good for chopping down trees, unfortunately. They don’t question the incense he burns through the night, sweet verbena and dill. They do notice the new ‘garlic and aloe’ hand lotion he brings in, but they don’t question it when he tells them it’s supposed to be really good for the skin.

He hopes no one suspects that he mixed garlic paste and aloe into unscented hand lotion, but Stiles has been doing this kind of weird shit to to the deputies for years.

When he has the sheriff’s office properly warded, he lets himself relax for an hour or two and watch TV with his dad before he’s back to the library for more research.

Not having Scott to test things on is a big damper to Stiles’ plans, but he takes a keen eye to the book that mentioned lavender and mint, and trawls through its references looking for information that seems like it could be true. Half of the things he uses might be wrong, but if even one of these stupid ingredients are as good as mountain ash, then he’ll take it.

It helps that Stiles and his dad have preserved his mother’s herb garden. Stiles can’t even imagine his grocery bills without it.

* * *

For a long time Stiles didn’t even touch the garden, after she - after his mom died. It was too much her space, too many memories of her in her wide-brimmed hat and overalls with a spade in hand and smiling at him warmly. When he went there all he could see was the outline of her absence.

When their therapist told them that they should do something to preserve her memory, the first thing either of them thought of was to work the garden.

Stiles was the one who actually knew anything about gardening. His dad didn’t bother to help in the backyard besides to mow, but Stiles would demand that his mother explain what she was doing and why. She would laugh and carefully point out dead shoots to be pruned or insect damage to watch for.

His dad only decided to learn after she was gone and couldn’t teach him. He listened, though, when Stiles rambled at him about fertilizers and mulch and watering patterns with no real coherency. Nowadays, the garden is more his dad’s space than Stiles’.

Stiles is amazed to find the variety of herbs it holds. Even nightshade, which he has learned from google is poisonous, and some varieties of aconite.

Stiles wishes he knew more about his mother. Was she supernatural, or just adjacent like him? Would she want him to know? Would she help him?

Would she be proud of him?

* * *

“Mom was a librarian, right?”

The sheriff looks up from his dinner of steamed fish and kale salad. “Yeah.”

“Did she - I just, her garden has some weird stuff in it, right? Was she a botanist before she met you or something?”

The sheriff clasps his hands and looks at them. “I never asked. Claudia - I got the feeling she didn’t want to talk about her past. I didn’t push.” Stiles can see genuine regret on his dad’s face.

“But, I mean, what about her family? We used to see them sometimes. What’s his name, uncle Jarod or something.”

“Herod,” Stiles’ dad corrects, a considering look on his face. “I haven’t heard from him since the funeral. I’m not sure if I even have his number still.”

Stiles frowns at his plate. Why hasn’t he asked these questions before now? Has he been so focused on surviving his grief that he never bothered to remember his mother and her life? It feels like a betrayal to her memory, in some ways, to let their shared family fall out of contact.

His dad’s face mirrors Stiles’ feelings, a familiar mix of concern and guilt.

“Why don’t we try to contact him tomorrow? See if we can hear how he’s doing?”

Stiles nods, grateful that his dad understands what he needs.

* * *

Having warded the sheriff’s station, Stiles decides to ward Scott’s home. He can’t trust Scott not to say anything to Derek or Melissa, so he waits a week for the full moon and for Scott to leave before he pulls his paint can full of spices stewed in olive oil - fennel, star anise, bay, pepper, and pine needles plucked from the tree outside of Scott’s house a few days ago.

Stiles grabs his paintbrush and begins layering the oil at the base of the siding. It’s almost meditative, the way the brush moves back and forth across wood, the oil smelling warm and spicy, with the resiny note of the pine needles. He’s surprised at how much is left when he completes the perimeter of the house - enough that he takes it home and applies it to his own house.

Enough that he considers painting Derek’s loft in a similar way. Which is stupid, Peter would catch him and Derek would humiliate him in front of everyone. Again.

Still, the instinct is there. Stiles tells himself it’s because Scott spends so much time there, even if he’s not really convinced that it’s the real reason.

* * *

Stiles doesn’t have the chance to put his newfound knowledge into practice until mid-July, the heat of the summer sweltering even in the sheriff’s office.

He hears rumbling from the deputies about animal attacks, especially concerned after the slew of deaths in the previous fall. Stiles surreptitiously grabs some of the pictures from the evidence closet and checks them against the pictures taken from the scene of Peter’s various killings.

The gashes are around the right size, a little smaller - though whatever is doing these killings probably isn’t as big as Peter’s full alpha form - also, hey, can Derek do that? Why didn’t he turn into a big slobbering wolf monster when Jackson was killing everyone? If there was ever a time, surely it was then?

Stiles forces himself to focus back on the pictures. The gash patterns are similar enough, and sufficiently different from what Stiles has seen online from mountain lion attacks, that he feels comfortable saying that the attacks are supernatural in origin.

Not that he actually says that to anyone. The sheriff’s office is keeping the attacks on the down low, to prevent mass panic, and there is no way Stiles is ever talking to Derek’s pack again until they all apologize to him. Personally.

So he takes a bag of mountain ash sawdust he collected after making the planks he used to ward the sheriff’s office, a handful of dried aconite he put through the coffee grinder no one in his household uses anymore, and heads out into the woods where the attacks were located.

* * *

Stiles is really not expecting how quickly the omega - and it’s clearly an omega, thank god - comes for him. They manage to get a decent scratch on Stiles’ arm before he can get the aconite dust in their face and knock them out.

Stiles wonders if aconite to the face is like a carburetor to the head, where it’s nice when it happens on TV and knocks someone out, but in real life you get a concussion and don’t stop having headaches for a month.

Considering the scratch on his arm, Stiles isn’t opposed to some aconite headaches for this omega.

Stiles grabs the paste of nightshade, sugar, and thyme he prepared at home in his mom’s mortar and pestle that they sometimes still use to make guac. He’s working entirely on supposition for this mixture, and he’s kind of excited to see if it will work. Not that he should really be excited, because there are lives on the line, but there’s something incredible about working through the properties of these herbs on his own and trying new combinations.

Nightshade and sugar to curse and hollow thyme’s courage. Ideally, it will send the omega fleeing away from Beacon Hills. Stiles made this batch particularly strong in the hopes that the scent memory will make the omega think twice about returning.

He rubs it under and into the omega’s nose, grimacing to himself and bemoaning a lack of gloves. Nightshade is poisonous to humans, but he has to hope a werewolf will survive it. It’s definitely not a kind of aconite, at least.

Stiles drives away before the omega wakes up, not wanting to get caught in its path in case the mixture has some kind of unintended side effect.

* * *

The problem with trying to learn about herbs from the books in the Beacon Hills public library - aside from the huge amount of misinformation - is that they aren’t particularly helpful unless you’re a midwife in a rural medieval village. There are combinations of herbs for every ailment, even a few Stiles didn’t know existed, and helpful tips for applying them, but no one gives you any helpful tips when your goal is to make werewolf repellent.

So, of course, when the omega wakes up afraid and confused, it _does_ run away from where Stiles left it, but Stiles doesn’t have the chance to celebrate because instead of running away from Beacon Hills, it runs directly into Hale pack territory.

Not that that would be a problem, normally. Stiles would be happy to just leave it to Derek’s merry band of fuckups (and Scott), but he gets a distinct feeling that Peter and/or Derek would get a little weird about him messing with the paste he made. Stiles just isn’t in the mood for a big lecture from the two thickest pairs of eyebrows in town; though actually Peter’s aren’t that thick, maybe he plucks.

Stiles doesn’t even realize that the omega is going to be a problem until it’s dashing past him down the road from the preserve, but by then all he can do is swear and kick his Jeep into a higher gear hoping to catch up.

Of course, because all things in Stiles’ life exist only to torment him, the omega heads straight for the hospital. Where Melissa is working a night shift. Fuck.

Oh, and all of the sick patients too. But mostly Melissa.

When he speeds past two stop signs and swerves into the hospital parking lot, he can’t see the omega anywhere. Surely he would know if it went inside, and there isn’t any broken glass anywhere. Stiles parks in front of the main entrance and gets out, scanning the parked cars for movement.

“Hey Stiles! Did you come to pick me up?” Melissa asks from behind him. Fuck.

Stiles opens and closes his mouth a few times, trying to think of a good lie to tell her. “Sorry Mrs. McCall, there’s a feral werewolf on the loose. I’ve got it handled, I just need you to go back inside.” He tries to mimic the sure and steady sound of his dad’s voice when he’s in Sheriff Mode.

He thanks whatever powers exist in this fucked up world that Melissa McCall knows about the supernatural so he doesn’t have to try to lie to her. “Do you want me to call Scott?” She asks, mildly concerned.

“Nope! No, haha, no that’s okay, he knows I’m here. Just make sure you’re safe.”

Stiles decides to stalk into the parking lot instead of having to confront the fact that he and Scott aren’t talking now. He grips a handful of the mountain ash sawdust in his hand and pulls it from the bag at his hip. It’s a familiar texture on his skin and he enters that same trance-like state he had when he painted Scott’s house. He rubs grains between his fingers and follows their pull towards the far side of the parking lot.

It would probably be more effective as a tracker if he had mixed the sawdust with lemongrass or rose, but he didn’t think that far ahead. It’s enough to get him close to the omega, though.

He fingers the mallow flower pressed to his chest, right over his heart, and hopes to god it’s as effective a noise deterrent as he measured earlier in his home.

Stiles finds the omega cowering next to a blue corolla. Absolutely horrible taste in hiding cars, Stiles thinks to himself. No wonder the werewolf doesn’t have a pack.

He throws the sawdust and holds onto the feeling of fullness inside his head, the concentrated focus he associates with the herbs. The feeling he had when he laid down the mountain ash barrier around the club. Stiles honestly isn’t sure what he’s hoping to accomplish with the move, just that it feels right in the moment.

The fact that it forms a perfect circle around the omega is deeply frightening to Stiles. Is that a normal thing? Is he magic somehow? Stiles isn’t supposed to be magic, he’s supposed to be the human one. What the hell.

The omega doesn’t notice his moment of panic. It shrinks down on itself within the circle, though it doesn’t bare its neck to Stiles. Wolves normally do that as a sign of submission, right? So maybe it’s only playing pretend, hoping for a moment to strike. Or maybe it’s just a normal person who doesn’t act like a wolf because they’re not deranged.

Stiles notices the man’s face for the first time that night. He’s covered in sweat and dirt, his eyes wide, his upper lip still caked in a layer of purple-brown paste. His hair is matted to his head, and he wears no clothes. Stiles hasn’t heard of omegas going as feral as this, or at least the one from last year who scared Isaac wore normal clothes. That guy was eating organs from a graveyard, though, so maybe he’s not a great yardstick by which to judge omega cleanliness.

Stiles doesn’t notice the wound on the omega’s back until he properly sees Stiles and flinches away. A central triangle of flesh has been cut off and three spokes are cut into a hexagonal pattern, almost like Derek’s triskelion. What the fuck? It looks important, like a symbol meant to convey something, but Stiles has no idea what.

Stiles sits down on his haunches in front of the omega, smiling in what he hopes is a threatening way. “Here is what’s going to happen. You’re going to tell me who cut that symbol into you and what it means, and then you’re going to run away from this town. You won’t hurt anyone. You won’t stop running until that horrible scent is gone.”

The omega stares at him. His expression looks vaguely horrified, though Stiles is sure it must be a product of the fear paste he smeared under the man’s nose more so than any threatening demeanor of Stiles’ own.

“P-please, don’t - don’t kill me. I don’t want to die, I was just doing what they told me…”

Stiles pitches his voice lower. “Of course you were.”

“They told me to kill some people, get the new alpha’s attention. I don’t know what they wanted, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please…”

“I see,” Stiles says, not really grasping what the fuck is going on at all. Are they a big enough deal that they’d assume Derek would know the symbol as soon as he saw it? Because no offense to them, but Derek’s kind of a ginormous idiot. He thought Lydia was the Kanima, like you really cannot get any lower than that. Maybe they were hoping Peter was still alive. Peter probably knows what’s up.

Stiles takes an almost perverse pleasure in the knowledge that he’s keeping the omega’s torturers from sending the equivalent of a bloody ‘u up?’ text to the Hales. Not because he wants to protect the Hales or anything, just that leaving them in the dark feels almost like a victory over stupid Derek and his stupid pack.

“You’re not going to do that, though, are you?” Stiles says more than asks, voice still low. “You aren’t going to kill anyone else. This town is under my protection, now. If you come back I will do something much, much worse than whoever sent you could even dream of.” He’s totally bluffing at this point, but the mallow flower is supposed to cover the insane beating of his heart.

The omega is nodding and crying in equal measure, slick rivers of snot running over the purple residue on his lip.

“Run west to the sea. They’re not going to expect the Hales to let you go, and the beaches will hide your scent. Stick to water when you can. Good luck, dude.”

The omega nods shakily, standing and tensing to run as Stiles bends down to break the circle. Stiles watches him flee into the night, all alone, and he feels an uncertain kinship with a werewolf whose name he doesn’t even know.

* * *

Stiles gives up on the symbol after poring through every book in the public library even vaguely related to werewolves or symbology on a lazy Sunday morning.

He figures it must be a werewolf symbol since he can’t imagine a more vindictive, cruel practice for transmitting messages. He can totally see Derek grabbing a hapless omega by the shoulder and clawing words into their back before setting them off towards their intended target. Like some kind of indentured werewolf torture mail service.

Or, well, he doesn’t know of any other things that can wound an omega like that and keep them wounded without discoloring the wound in any way.

Regardless of who sent the omega, they represent a threat to Beacon Hills and, more importantly, Scott and Stiles’s dad. Stiles needs to kick his protection plan into action.

And he has a plan. He’s not going to go into a fight swinging like a werewolf, that’s some weak shit. Some Spider-Man shit, and look at how often Peter Parker dies. Stiles is going to be the Batman of Beacon Hills if he’s got any say in the matter.

He stalks out of the library calculating the time he has before he has to get home for dinner with his dad - enough time to start planting marigold seeds along the perimeter of the pack’s territory.

He doesn’t know how long he has before the mysterious aggressors notice their messenger has fled. Or maybe they’d assume the messenger was killed by Derek? Did Stiles fuck up their little pack meeting shit by freeing that poor man? He’s not even sure if he’s bothered, if that’s the case.

Actually, he thinks as he scoops up dirt from the preserve and plunks a marigold seed in, either way it’s fucked. Regardless of the pack being involved, no one should kidnap innocent werewolves and carve stuff on their backs!

He’s so angry about the omega that his concentration is shot and he barely gets through a quarter of the perimeter before his phone alarm rings for dinner.

Stiles actually manages to have a halfway decent conversation with his dad over dinner, but mostly by way of talking about the animal attacks and eagerly listening to any updates.

His dad asks Stiles about the dirt stains on his hands, and Stiles can say he was gardening without lying at all, even if he wasn’t gardening in _their_ yard necessarily.

When he’s done, he grabs a handful of rose petals to mix into the sawdust and the bucket of lemon oil he bought from a candle making company online. It’s not subtle, but maybe it’ll keep more omegas away. Maybe.

Fuck, he really wishes Scott were here. He needs to test some of these remedies on a persona licanidae. Maybe he can bribe Isaac to let Stiles test shit on him; that scarf collection must be pricey for an unemployed high schooler. Unless he inherited his dad’s money? Or, wait, did Derek inherit that stuff in trust if Isaac is his wolfy adoptee?

He ends his internal debate halfway to the preserve - he’s not going to ask any of them for help because he’s still got pride. If they don’t need him, then he doesn’t need them either.

Batman doesn’t get to test all of his inventions! Sometimes you’ve just got to work out the kinks on the field.

Still, he does wish he got to do just about _any_ kind of testing.

* * *

He has to do all of his gardening one handed, since he needs the sawdust in his hand to know if werewolves are nearby. This presents a problem when he forgets the precise boundaries of the pack’s territories.

Normally he’d mix water with a little drop of his blood and put an aconite petal (he thinks the yellow flowered ones might be better for it but he only has purple in his jeep and no time to test) and the petal would drift in the direction of the closest edge of the territory. He’s only tested it once, though he discovered it a few days prior when an aconite petal fell into a bucket in the garden and started drifting to one edge, but he still has all the supplies in his car. But. The hand.

Batman would make some kind of wolf-detecting bat bracelet or something. Stiles has to make do by taking twice as long to do everything. Once he finishes planting the marigold seeds, he pulls out his notepad to jot down the bracelet idea.

He’s filled half of it with weird herb-related inventions he’s dreamed up over the last week. Most of them are probably completely infeasible for reasons he won’t know until he tries to make them, but if he’s going to be dealing with some kind of shitty werewolf turf war, you had better believe Stiles is going to come prepared.

He has a short section at the back for herb combination ideas, but most of the actual ideas he’s written down are about applying the stuff he cooks up without him needing to wolfsbane everyone asleep first. In an ideal world, he’d be able to throw a fear bomb or something from far away and never get close to the fighting. Maybe a slingshot to shoot little pellets? He jots it down too.

It’s only when he’s partway through painting trees along the border with the lemon oil that his sawdust precaution comes to fruition.

It feels too early for another omega, but fuck if Stiles isn’t going to intercept a foreign werewolf heading into _his_ home.

He holds the sawdust in one hand and a handful of aconite dust mixed with a bag of chamomile tea in the other. He has a pair of socks around his shoes; lavender and mint rubbed on his nose, behind his ears, and under his pits; and a mallow flower at his heart. He’s as prepared as he’ll ever be.

The werewolf still sees him coming, somehow. He even wore a ski mask, despite the heat, because he didn’t want some poor omega to get tortured for a description of his face.

You can’t win them all, he thinks as he’s pressed up against a tree.

His attacker hasn’t outright killed him, so he slams his palmful of aconite dust into their face. They grab his wrist before it hits them, but that only serves to launch the dust all around their head.

“Night night, bitch,” Stiles says as they fall over on the ground, sound asleep.

* * *

It’s a nice line, but Stiles is the one who has to drag them far enough away from the tree to make a sawdust circle around them. He plugs their nose with lemon oil soaked tissues because he’s feeling a little vindictive.

Then he’s the one who has to wait for them to wake up, an agonizing fifteen minutes. He’s sitting on a log nearby and checking his watch when he hears them start to rouse.

“Wakey-wakey, eggs and bakey. No eggs or bakey in this situation, though, at least not for you. Maybe I can turn you into bakey when I’m through with you. I bet you’d be stringy as shit, though, there’s a reason you don’t eat predators. Subpar meat.”

The werewolf on the ground flashes red eyes at him. Stiles points his flashlight directly into their eyes, hoping to distract them from their surroundings. Also so he can get a good look at them.

Ugh. Tall, bald, and ugly. He’s probably good looking to someone out there, but sure as hell not to Stiles. He looks like an edgy, ‘sexy’ Lex Luther. He looks like he’d be the leader of the worlds worst biker gang if he has the same propensity for leather that Derek does. Wait. Is Derek a leather daddy?

No, focus on the roasting, Stiles. This guy looks like he’d pay some girl online for foot pics.

In short: a class A fuckwad.

“Who are you?” The man says, by way of greeting.

“Did your brains leak out of your head when they cut off your hair, dude? You really think I’m going to just tell you who I am? What kind of idiot do I look like?”

His eyes flash red again and Stiles is so bored of alpha werewolves.

“You know flashing your eyes at me isn’t really going to get you much. Posturing isn’t very effective when you have nothing to threaten me with.”

“I’m going to rip your fingernails off one by one until you scream.”

“From there? I think you are overestimating your reach. Why don’t we approach this like civilized people instead of hormone driven rage-idiots. If that’s a thing you can do, I don’t know, maybe this is just who you are -“

“What. Do. You. Want,” the alpha grits out, voice low and threatening.

“Let's start out with a name, huh?”

“Ennis,” the man says, not looking particularly frightened to say it. Stiles figures even an alpha has to worry about Hunters and Kanimas and shit, but who is he to say what Ennis should or shouldn’t share.

“Delightful! While you’re feeling particularly wordy: did you cut this mark into that omega the other day?” Stiles asks, holding up his drawing of the symbol.

“So what if we did?” Ennis asks. He grins sharply, his eyes starting to adjust to the feeble light of Stiles’ old flashlight.

“While I appreciate the thought, have you considered texting? Email? Maybe a phone call, if you’re desperate? I’m not sure omega express is really the best method for getting in contact. A little messy, don’t you think?”

“Messy is what we want.”

“Cute. Fun. Great. Love that. Are you fucking stupid? I’m not sure I’ve met a smart werewolf yet - although maybe Peter counts, but personally I think he only seems smart because he’s so evil - but boy, you are truly pushing the bar lower and lower.”

Ennis looks a little lost, but Stiles keeps rambling.

“Seriously, you’re going after the pack of wolves that cured a Kanima and beat Gerard Argent? The ones who worked with the not-crazy Argents, who are explicitly trained to kill violent werewolves and who happen to live in this town? What the fuck is wrong with you? I’m at a loss here. Did you see their last fight and think ‘oooh, yeah, now they’re at their weakest’? Because, buddy, I’ve got news: they’ll eat you alive.”

“You some kind of fanboy?” Ennis asks.

“Fuck no. I’m just being practical, here. For your own sake, I hope you go after someone else.”

“We have a pack of alphas. Like Talia Hale’s little boy could stand against us.”

“Why is Derek the one you’re concerned about? Please, dude, Derek isn’t who you’ve got to be frightened of.”

“Who is?” Ennis’ smile is practically feral in its delight.

“Me.” Stiles blows more aconite dust in Ennis’ stupid face before he can get another word in.

* * *

Stiles is so grateful that he managed to finish the aconite soaked ropes the previous week. He’d been meaning for them to be used on Scott in case he needed to be forcibly removed from Derek’s pack, but tying up Ennis like a pork roll is a satisfaction Stiles can’t put into words.

Stiles ties a pull line to Ennis and stays silent as he drags him out of Hale territory. He’s focused on the sawdust in his hand, trying to note any new presences, ignoring the bite of the rope on his shoulders. When he stops at a puddle, mixes a bit of his blood in, places a purple petal on the surface, and sees it lay still, he drops the lead and turns back to look at Ennis.

“You are truly the poorest fuck in the pack if they stuck you on scouting duty, bro. Tell your alpha of alphas or whatever to stay off of my damn property. I’m the cranky grandpa to Beacon Hills’ collective lawn. I won’t be so nice next time.”

The alpha’s enhanced senses probably won’t notice the light tremor in Stiles’ hands, the intense beat of his heart, or his heavy breaths as he jogs back into Beacon Hills proper. All of them could be blamed on the heavy exertion of dragging a body around; if Stiles has spent the last week dragging massive bags of fertilizer and dirt in much the same way, well that’s between him and his mom’s plants.


	3. The Reconnection

When Stiles gets back to his Jeep, he allows himself fifteen minutes of his panic attack before he’s sniffing from the tube of vanilla and pine he keeps in the glove compartment. If he gets into that headspace, the one he’s starting to think might be magic, it’ll delay the panic attack for an hour or so when he sniffs the combination of scents. It can’t get rid of the panic, just let him act through it for a time.

He drives home and collapses into his bed, not even bothering to shower. He has ten minutes at most before his panic comes back and he doesn’t want to fall in the shower and hurt himself.

The fact that he gets a call from Scott really doesn’t help the anxiety swelling in his stomach and pressing hard against his chest.

“Scott,” he says as he answers. “Now really isn’t a good time.”

“Sorry, I know it’s midnight and you’re mad at me right now, but I was thinking about getting a tattoo and it didn’t feel right doing it without you.”

“A tattoo,” Stiles repeats, unsure if he’s really hearing that right.

“Yeah, you know, to commemorate surviving my first school year as a werewolf.”

Stiles thinks about Ennis, and his weird pack of alphas, and wonders whether Scott should really be celebrating his survival right now.

“Look, dude,” Stiles says. “I can tattoo you in the morning. Tell me what you want and I’ll do it, just not right now.”

“No, I mean, I figured I’d ask Derek how he did it, I wasn’t asking you -“

“Do _not_ go to Derek with this, Scott, I swear to god. I can give you a way sweeter tattoo than anything he can do, just call me in the morning.”

“Okay. Thanks, Stiles. I love you, you know that, right?”

Stiles feels bitter anger rise in his throat. “Not really, but I’d love to hear how you’re planning on convincing me again. Good night, Scott.”

He ends the call and proceeds to hyperventilate for the next twenty minutes. When he’s calmed down enough that he can approximate sleep, he’s struck by a feeling he hasn’t felt all summer, probably since Lydia chose Jackson over him: hope.

* * *

The next morning, Stiles’ dad comments on how tired he looks, but Stiles doesn’t even mind. Scott came to _him_ for help. Not Derek. Who cares how tired he is, Stiles is going to give Scott the best damn tattoo he can. It’s going to be such a good tattoo. No stupid Derek tattoo will even compare.

He carefully plans out his strategy and gathers the herbs he’ll need. He figures this is as good a time as any to ask Scott about the different kinds of wolf’s bane in his mom’s garden.

He gathers his supplies and drives over to Scott’s house as quickly as he can, before Scott decides to change his mind and work with Derek Fucking Hale again.

Stiles knows that the tattoo isn’t some kind of magical cure to their relationship problems - bad phrasing - but damn if it doesn’t feel like there’s a lot of pressure on his back to show Derek up. With his… plant magic. Derek would probably brand the tattoo on with a cattle prod or something ridiculous. Or maybe there’s a secret Hale family recipe for tattoo ink.

But if anyone is going to make a good tattoo out of herbs, it’d better be Stiles!

He jogs up to Scott’s door, bag of supplies in hand, and knocks. He’s had a key since he was a kid, but he figures he’s not been over in a while. He doesn’t want to put Scott on the defensive in his own territory. Is that a werewolf thing? Well, either way, it’s the polite thing to do.

Not that Stiles has ever been polite in his life.

Scott opens the door and looks around cautiously, like he thinks someone is watching them. “Scott, is someone watching your house?” Stiles asks, chest tight for a moment with his fear that Ennis’ pack might be in town.

“No, I don’t - it’s fine, just come inside,” Scott says, grabbing Stiles by the arm and pushing him through the doorway. It’s a very Derek move. Has Derek been rubbing off on Scott - oh god that’s a bad image. Not the Derek part, Stiles is sure Derek’s cock is just as perfectly beautiful as the rest of him, or at least it is in his imagination, but the Scott part.

Oh god he just imagined Derek’s dick. That feels like a betrayal. He and Derek are enemies right now! No fraternizing allowed!

Stiles doesn’t even object as he’s dragged up to Scott’s room.

When Scott closes the door, he lets out a sigh and hugs Stiles. It feels nice. When Scott turns to him, he’s got a strange look on his face. “Why don’t you smell like anything?”

“Ugh, not you too. Don’t worry about it, just a little herbal fuckery. How about your tattoo? What are you interested in?”

Scott grins lopsidedly. God Stiles has missed his best friend’s weird face. “I was thinking about two bands of black around my arm? What do you think?”

“That’s kind of… plain. No offense! Just thought you’d want something more like two wolves howling at each other or something. Maybe a dragon breathing fire.”

“Please, I know what your drawing skills are like.”

“ _Wow,_ Scott. You wound me. I can’t believe you would cast aspersions like those on the person who is going to be putting a permanent image on your skin. Do you want me to draw a penis on you, because you’re being kind of a huge dick -“

Scott laughs and shoves Stiles. It’s familiar, like Stiles hasn’t spent the last month and a half without his best friend for the first time in almost ten years of friendship. Stiles doesn’t know how to feel about how easy it is to fall back into; he feels like he ought not trust Scott so quickly, but he can’t bring himself to care now that they’re face to face.

Scott insists on two black bands, and Stiles sighs in defeat. He pulls out two petals of wolf’s bane and holds them out to Scott. “Can you smell a difference between these two?”

Scott goes still. He points to the purple one: “this smells like… it’s like acid. Like the intense stuff from Harris’ class.” He points to the yellow one: “this is more tame. Like vinegar. Less intense, more mellow.”

Stiles crows and pumps his fist. “I thought so! I couldn’t find anything in any of the books in the library, but the yellow aconite flowers just felt softer. Thanks dude, you’re the best.”

Scott stares at Stiles as he mixes the yellow petal, wood ash, egg yolk, pine sap, and honey in the bowl. He takes the resulting black paste and smears it along two sections of cloth before wrapping them around Scott’s arm. He tries to get into the magic headspace as he does it, mixing everything more than strictly necessary as the repetition helps bring his will into focus. Or some mystic shit like that.

“Okay, let’s wait an hour or two and check it then.”

Scott looks a little sheepish when he asks, “do you want to play something in the meantime?”

When they’re done shooting aliens in halo three hours later, it truly feels like they’re back to the way they were before Derek poached Scott for his pack.

Scott gets texts from the pack group chat that Stiles isn’t in, but he steadfastly ignores them. Stiles wants to kiss him. Platonically.

* * *

When they pull off the cloth and wash away the remaining ink, Scott has two perfect bands of black around his arm. Stiles is just as impressed with his work as Scott is - he figured they’d probably be a little lumpy, but the lines are impeccable and the color deep.

“Can we - I know you don’t want to talk about Derek and the rest of the pack right now,” Scott begins, as Stiles lays on his bed.

“Yeah, I really don’t. I honestly don’t know why you joined their fucking pack, dude.”

“Partly it was to keep an eye on Peter. I figured someone had to.”

“And the other part?”

“I don’t know… I wanted to keep you safe.” Stiles starts to object, but Scott talks over him. “No, shut up dude, I mean it. I don’t know what happened to you the night of the game, but you smelled - god, Stiles, you smelled so afraid when I saw you at that warehouse. And you looked… defeated. I don’t want to see you like that ever, no matter what, and I figured maybe if I work with Derek, we won’t have to rely on you so much.”

Stiles gives Scott an unimpressed look. “I’m pretty sure you’re the one pulling most of their weight in that pack, dude.”

“Hey, Derek is actually not that bad. Once you get to know him. Mostly he sits far away from us and watches while we have fun, but sometimes he jokes. He’s actually pretty funny. But, I don’t know, I think it’s like a werewolf thing - I can feel him. He doesn’t mean to be a creep, or a jerk. He’s trying to be nice, he just doesn’t know how.”

“Scott,” Stiles says gravely, clapping a hand to Scott’s shoulder. “Only you would adopt an orphaned alpha werewolf from the side of the road. Only you.”

Scott just shakes his head and laughs. “Peter’s the real threat. I can see the way he manipulates Derek - I think they’re too close for Derek to realize what is happening.”

“Or maybe Derek’s trying to lull you into a false sense of security dude.” It doesn’t sound right to him; Stiles has to admit, Peter is pretty damn evil, and he’s always been worse than Derek. “Plus, what was with him kicking me out and saying I was pathetic and shit? Did you know he specifically asked the Argents not to train me? What the fuck?”

“Did you talk to Allison?” Scott asks, completely ignoring Stiles’ other, completely valid concerns.

Stiles gives him the stink eye and Scott sighs.

“I don’t know, dude,” Scott says. “It’s like. Like I said, I can feel it. He’s really protective of you. Jackson offered to spy on you and keep you in line and Derek _snarled_ at him. When Peter had his hands on you that night, Derek was afraid.”

“So, what, your weird bond is giving you good vibes about him? And I’m just supposed to trust that?”

“No, dude, I just… I don’t know how to explain it. I can read a lot of stuff from Derek and I don’t think he hates you. Maybe the opposite.” Scott grimaces.

Stiles can’t help but full belly laugh. “I think your sniffer is off if you think Derek Hale has a crush on me, numbnuts. If I’m anything to him I’m an annoying gnat he’s grown vaguely fond of. Like some kind of human pet.”

Scott grumbles something about ‘some kind of pet’ under his breath, but Stiles can’t bring himself to care. The thought of Derek Hale having feelings for him is so absurd it literally had never registered to Stiles. It wasn’t even like Lydia having feelings for him, which is now equally impossible, in that he at least had imagined that quite a lot. He’s not even sure how to imagine Derek being nice to him, let alone liking him. Stiles is pretty sure Derek has never blushed in his entire life.

Stiles leaves Scott’s house an hour later, completely forgetting to mention the omega or Ennis. He doesn’t want to text it or say it over the phone where the pack can hear and give information to Derek, or worse, Peter, so he resolves to meet Scott later and fill him in.

* * *

When he gets home, all thoughts of talking to Scott vanish. He sees his dad talking on the phone, _FaceTiming_ someone. The novelty is overshadowed by excitement when he realizes who his dad is talking to. “Uncle Herry!” He shouts, laughing and grabbing the phone from his dad’s hands

His uncle does _not_ look ten years older than the last time Stiles has seen him. Herod has always looked a little boyish, just like Stiles, button nose and full cheeks offset by piercing eyes. “Mietek! Look at you, all grown up. You look so much like Claudia, she would be so proud.”

Stiles’s smile is so wide he feels like it might split his face. Herry always was his favorite family member. Grandpa Stiles frightened him before his dementia, and after his mom’s own dementia, it was almost physically painful to talk to him. Grandpa Mietek died before Stiles was born.

Herod Gajos is whip smart, funny, and irreverent; the perfect combination of traits to make someone a beloved uncle. Stiles desperately wanted to emulate him as a kid.

Herry tells Stiles and his dad that he’s been traveling since Claudia died, hence why it took him so long to get back to Stiles’ dad. He apparently works freelance, doing some complicated analysis stuff in countries Stiles has never heard of.

Stiles talks about his high school experience so far and emphasizes Scott, much to his dad’s bemusement. The sheriff takes the opportunity to mention Stiles’ winning goal in their final lacrosse game of the season. Stiles plays it down, more so to avoid thinking about that evening and Gerard’s fists than for humility’s sake.

When he asks his dad to speak to Herod alone, for ‘guy reasons,’ neither of them seem very surprised.

When Stiles takes the phone into his room and Herod sees the mark that Ennis’s crew cut into the omega, he makes Stiles show it to him. “Where did you get this?”

Stiles isn’t fooled by Herod’s faux-curious tone. Stiles has spent enough time watching people’s faces closely to see the apprehension and fear on his uncle’s face. “Why? Do you know what it means?” Stiles asks, taking the same faux-curious tone and knowing that he’s fooling no one.

“Stiles,” Herod says, tone suddenly serious. “Don’t fuck with these people. If you saw someone making that mark, stay away from them. They’re - it’s a gang symbol.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “A werewolf gang? Pretty sure they call those packs ‘round here.”

Herod narrows his eyes. “I’m serious, Stiles. I don’t know what your mom told you about werewolves, but these ones are _bad news_.”

“Let’s say your handsome, intelligent nephew got into their radar. What would you say he should do, then?” Stiles feels like he’s having an out of body experience having this conversation like this. He feels more like he’s talking to Peter - oh god Herod is totally Stiles’ Peter, just less evil - than uncle Herry, who used to pick him up and set him on his shoulders.

“Are you still living in Beacon Hills? Didn’t a Hale come back into power there recently?”

“I’m not going to question how the hell you know about that, let alone how you found out from Malaysia, but yes, he did.”

“Use him to distract them. They want to recruit, probably, so they might not mind if you annoyed them if you can give them information about him or his pack.”

“And if I won’t do that?”

“Run. As fast and as far as you can. They won’t care who they hurt to get what they want, and they hate threats to face. The alpha pack is every malformed alpha instinct rolled into one. Are you still human?”

“As far as I know.”

“Don’t let Hale turn you. They’re here to get him to kill his pack and join them. You’re safer off human while you’re in their sights.”

“Uncle Herry, how the hell do you know all of this? Are _you_ still human?”

“As far as I know,” Herod quips, smile forced.

* * *

Stiles calls Scott as soon as he’s off the line with Herod, not caring about Derek’s pack finding out. “Dude. Dude! I have news. Big news. Like, Empire State Building sized news.”

“What could have happened in the two hours since I saw you?”

“I just talked to my uncle.”

“The one you haven’t seen since… you know, a decade ago?”

“Yep. And not only is he kicking it in Malaysia, but he knows about werewolves and Derek’s pack. Like, you dipshits are international news.”

“Uh.”

“Not only that, but I pissed off a pack of alphas - the alpha pack, real genius name there - and he was legit _scared_ of them.”

“You what?” Scott sounds suddenly concerned.

“Chill, they don’t know who I am. I don’t think. I mean, I hid my scent and heartbeat, plus I wore a mask. That should be enough, right?”

“Uh,”

“Anyway, so it turns out the alpha pack has come to convince Derek to eat you like some kind of weirdo cannibal. Pack-ibal? Apparently they want to recruit him to join their freaky werewolf cannibal cult. It’ll make him stronger or something? Can you believe this shit?”

“What the _fuck_.”

“Anyway Herod was like ‘you should give Derek up to them to get them off your back,’ and honestly I think I’m growing as a person because I didn’t even consider it. Maybe because it would mean helping him eat you, but even if it was just Jackson in his pack I don’t think I would do it. Is that a good thing? I feel like it might be a good thing.”

“Stiles I think -“

“I think I might be in the middle of a panic attack.”

“- you’re panicking right now. Can you breathe with me?”

Scott takes the time to breathe with Stiles, waits until he’s properly calmed down before he ends the call saying he needs to tell Derek.

Stiles lays awake for a long, long time, thinking about what he’s learned.

* * *

The problem with being a paranoid son of a bitch - no aspersions to his mother - is that the alpha pack doesn’t do anything for an entire month and it drives Stiles up the fucking wall.

Derek has decided that Stiles is still persona non-grata, good for him, so Scott has to be careful not to be seen with him.

The time is incredible for preparing for what is to come; Stiles has been putting all of his waking hours not at the sheriff’s office working in the garage or in the garden. It’s starting to wreak havoc on Stiles’ sleep schedule, though. He has to put agrimony and hops flowers under his pillow just to get a restful night's sleep.

Having Scott around to test things on is equally incredible. Even if he has to sneak into Scott’s house with amaranth and poppy seed sewed into his clothes to avoid being noticed, it’s worth it. Scott seems to be going along with it mostly to make up to Stiles for how shitty a friend he’s been.

So when school starts and Scott texts Stiles that the alpha pack left a massive signature on Derek’s loft, like pissing on his territory, it feels more like relief than fear. Like dread turning into anticipation in his stomach. Stiles is ready to fight, to tear the alpha pack into tiny pieces.


	4. The Escape

The first day of his Junior year is… strange. Jackson and Lydia don’t look at him. Scott doesn’t talk to him. Stiles knows that he and Scott are cool again, but there is no stopping the anxiety he feels when he looks over at Scott during pre-calc and his best friend doesn’t meet his eyes.

He sits alone during lunch. He’s becoming pre-pack Boyd, which would honestly be kind of hilarious if 1) the pack hadn’t been so good for Boyd, and 2) Boyd weren’t still missing.

English is when the day takes a turn from strange into bizarre. He has no werewolves in the class with him, but his sawdust bracelet - perfected with Scott’s help - is pulling him towards the front of the room. Towards their new teacher, Ms. Blake. Who appears to otherwise be perfectly normal.

The bracelet doesn’t lie, though.

When Stiles brings it up with Scott later in the locker room before cross country tryouts, Scott just shrugs. “She didn’t seem that weird to me.”

“Dude, you know how werewolves are. They’re sneaky sons of bitches. Maybe she’s part of the alpha pack,” Stiles says. He struggles into a long sleeved shirt and Scott waits patiently until he’s done to keep talking.

“I promise you she isn’t a werewolf. The only werewolf I smelled in that class was Jackson.”

“Maybe she knows how to hide her scent like I can. Or maybe she’s some other kind of creature of the night!” Stiles shouts as Scott stalks out of the locker room. He sighs to himself. He’ll have to investigate on his own. After he finishes cross country.

Stiles’ garden work and patrolling through the preserve, as well as his practice last year running away from werewolves and kanimas, has given him surprising stamina. Finstock, who has apparently taken up coaching for the cross country team, gives Stiles an appreciative thumbs up when he’s the only non-werewolf to complete a full five miles without taking a break. Or collapsing.

Stiles likes running. It has the same kind of strange meditative feeling that playing with herbs does, but he doesn’t have to feel like his life depends on the outcome. Or at least, not unless he’s being chased.

Maybe he should take up running in the preserve instead of walking his patrols. It’ll give him a better excuse in case any grumpy werewolves show up to yell at him. Or if his dad asks where he’s going. Stiles is a little guilty at how much his dad is working since Jackson killed half of the deputies, but it’s giving him free reign to hang out with Scott.

After cross country, Stiles heads home with a promise to Scott to see him after he’s done patrolling the area around Derek’s new apartment. He grabs the little drawstring bag with his patrol supplies and rides his Jeep over. He has to park a block down from Derek’s place and pull out the binoculars. He’s having flashbacks to that shitty night when he got soundly rejected by Derek. But like, packly, not - not like that. Not that he wouldn’t be rejected by Derek, if he ever tried it. Stiles is pretty sure Derek is already in a committed relationship with hair gel and suffering.

Stiles has no idea why he’s been thinking about Derek’s dick so much. Honestly the werewolf it’s attached to has never rated lower in his estimation than he does now, so Stiles has no reason to want to get his hands on it.

Is he gay? Is this a gay thing? Or bi? Stiles doesn’t know the terminology, just that these feelings are very different from what he has always felt for Lydia. His love - obsession? - with Lydia has always felt like admiration. Not to be a caricature of himself, but Stiles is absolutely one of those ‘I want her to step on me’ kinds of boys. But with Derek, he wants to yell at him and hit him and then maybe take care of him. He - maybe he wants to do the stepping? Is that a thing?

Not that Derek seems like he wants to be stepped on. Or taken care of. Plus, it’s not like he even likes Stiles. Stiles is ‘pathetic’; who would want him? Typical of him to feel things for people who would never be interested in him in a million years. Absolutely typical.

Stiles is so caught up thinking about his strange new attraction to Derek that he doesn’t notice the people surrounding his Jeep until one of them wrenches his door - which was locked the last time he checked - open and drags him onto the street.

The one holding him slams Stiles’ head into the glass of his window and the last thing Stiles thinks before he falls unconscious is that he really hopes he doesn’t get another concussion.

* * *

Stiles wakes slowly, his head pounding heavily. He can hear breathing nearby and feel his patrol supplies squashed into his back. Thank god, at least he has his herbs.

When he gets his eyes open, he sits up and looks around. The room is wide open and tall; Stiles is struck by how empty it is. He can see three figures in the room, huddled together. That must be the source of the breathing.

Stiles drags himself over to them. “Sup,” he says, voice hoarse.

“Stiles? Is that you?” Someone says. It sounds suspiciously like Erica.

“Oh, fuck me. Don’t tell me they’re the reason you’ve been missing this whole time. Why does everything have to come back to the stupid alpha pack?” Stiles moans.

Erica ignores him. “This is Cora. Cora, Stiles.” The person next to her grunts at Stiles. “She was here when they got us.”

Cora nods at him cordially. Cora-dially.

“Sweet, love it, nice to meet you, do any of you have a plan to get out of here?” Stiles asks, impatient.

“We’re stuck in a bank vault, Stiles. What do you expect us to do?” Boyd says for the first time in the conversation. Stiles jumps a little bit in surprise to hear his voice.

“Uh, punch walls or something? I don’t know, you’re the werewolves.”

They ignore him and go back to cuddling or whatever it is they’re doing. Stiles rolls his eyes and pulls out his supplies. Ennis must not have recognized him if he let Stiles keep all of his herbs.

Of course, having herbs isn’t really enough to get them out of this pickle. The problem with Stiles’ new powers, if he can even call them that, is that no one makes herb combinations for fireballs or explosions or, whatever, gun spells or something. Wizards in D&D and Wheel of Time get to do cool, flashy stuff, but meanwhile Stiles is out here mixing calming teas and covering his scent from nosy werewolves.

You want some love spells? Oh, Stiles has got you covered. Every fucking herb seems to be used in love magic. If Stiles had learned this stuff last year, he might have been tempted to use it on Lydia. Stiles thinks about Derek. Maybe he could make him pay attention to Stiles, maybe like him a little, and then he might let Stiles hang out with Scott again. Maybe he and Derek could make out a little?

Stiles shakes his head. No, absolutely not. He’s not going to magically roofie a guy just because he thinks about his dick an unhealthy amount. He’ll just have to deal with whatever these feelings are on his own, with the help of his hand.

He pulls off his bag and rifles through it. Fucking nothing.

Still. He has time before the alphas come check on them. Surely he can come up with a plan. He’s supposed to be Batman.

* * *

So the plan isn’t _good_ by any stretch of the imagination, and Stiles’ imagination is pretty limber.

The problem isn’t that he thinks it won’t work - he’s pretty sure it will, at least with the element of surprise. The problem is that he has to wait for one of the stupid alphas to come down to the vault. And Stiles is terrible at waiting.

The three betas - or, the two betas and omega? Stiles isn’t sure what Cora’s deal is - are huddled together silently. Stiles doesn’t really do silence though.

“So, uh, you kids having fun down here?”

The three of them just stare at Stiles.

“Cool. Cool cool cool. Awesome, good talk.” He pauses for a moment, trying to think of something to say. “Were you kidnapped from a pack too, Cora?”

Boyd and Erica flinch. Cora just rolls her eyes and says, “no, they were all dead when I was taken.”

Stiles lets out a pained laugh. “Fuck. Sorry.”

Cora shrugs, and they lapse back into silence.

Stiles fidgets for a minute, tapping his fingers against his thigh with no rhythm whatsoever, before he feels the edge of encroaching panic and pulls out a bay leaf. It’s strange, but Stiles has found bay to be the best way to focus his mind.

He holds it between his thumb and pointer finger, slowly rubbing it, letting his mind focus solely on the texture and feeling of it. His head slowly fills with that old focus, the calm fullness that signals his power. There is nothing in the world but the veins of the bay leaf, the rough texture of it against his skin, the faint smell of it in his nose.

It would be frightening if Stiles could feel anything but the leaf in his fingers.

It must be hours before his attention is pulled from the leaf. He feels them coming before the alpha even opens the door of the vault, a malevolence at the edge of his vision. He scrambles to pull the long balloon full of sawdust out of his bag before it’s too late.

The alpha pulls open the door just as Stiles gets into position; he winds his arm back and throws it at their legs when he sees them.

The balloon works just like he tested on Scott - as soon as it hits her, it wraps around and sticks to itself, almost like a magnet. Stiles isn’t sure if it’s a magic thing or if the mountain ash just acts like that, but he’s not complaining about the result: the alpha immediately stiffens and comes to a halt, her arms by her sides, standing stock still.

She must be a woman, which is surprisingly egalitarian of the evil werewolf cannibal cult. Stiles would have expected the alpha back to be a bunch of shitty dudes like Ennis.

She flicks her claws out, raises her hackles, and flashes her alpha eyes at Stiles, but he couldn’t care less. Instead, he rushes over to Boyd, Erica, and Cora, and begins to pull them up. “Come on, come on, we need to get out of here. They might have backup and after the shit I pulled on the last one I met, I’d really prefer to not be here when they arrive.”

He hears a strangled gasp from the door. “You!” the alpha gasps. “You’re the one that attacked Ennis.”

Stiles chokes on air, his shoulder under Erica’s arm. “I - I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he laughs, shifting his eyes away. When she grins in triumph, Stiles remembers the lack of mallow flower, lavender, and mint on his person. “Fuck.”

Boyd gives Stiles a look, but Stiles just ignores him and starts moving towards the door, gingerly stepping around the alpha, and hurrying out into fresher air.

They rush outside into the night and Stiles feels around in his pockets for his phone. When he finds it, he presses the speed dial for Scott.

“Dude!” Scott exclaims, “where have you been?”

“Kinda got kidnapped,” Stiles says. “I need a ride. I’ve got Boyd, Erica, and some girl with me at that bank that closed a while ago on Main. Can you borrow your mom’s car?”

“Uh, I should probably call Derek?” Scott says.

“Oh god, please don’t. He’ll kick my ass if he knows I got kidnapped, and I really don’t want another lecture about how pathetic and useless I am.”

“Stiles, I think he should know -“

“Ugh, fine, Scott. Listen, I’m not that far from home, I’ll just run back and give you a head start picking up the lost puppies. I really don’t want to deal with Derek right now.”

Scott sighs. “Fine. I’ll call him. You better leave now.”

“Thanks. You’re the best.”

“You know I am.”

Stiles ends the call and turns to the trio behind him. “I guess you all heard that? Are you going to be okay on your own?”

They look at each other and Cora nods to Stiles.

He lazily salutes them and starts jogging back home. If he thinks about Derek when he’s laying in bed masturbating himself to sleep, that’s between him and his hand.

* * *

It turns out Stiles can’t avoid Derek just by going home. He blearily blinks awake at three in the morning to see red eyes unblinking at the foot of his bed and his window open to the night air.

“Wha -” Stiles whispers, before Derek interrupts him.

“You shouldn’t have been - why were you there?” he growls out. Stiles has to reassure himself that his dad is working a night shift and he doesn’t have to worry about the alpha’s volume.

“... are you seriously complaining that I saved your betas and got you a new omega chew toy? Are you fucking kidding me with this shit?” Stiles slumps back down on his bed and covers his face in his hands.

When Derek gently sits on the bed, Stiles peeks through his fingers; Derek seems to be just as surprised as Stiles that he’s still there. “Thank you,” Derek says. “For saving them. And bringing Cora back. I can’t - I am in your debt.” His voice is strangely formal on the last statement, like by saying it he’s signing some kind of melodramatic pact.

Stiles rolls his eyes. “I was saving myself, dumbass. It’s not like I wanted to get kidnapped. The three stooges were just an added bonus.”

Derek looks at his hands. “I’m sorry. That you got - that I couldn’t protect you.”

“How were you supposed to protect me? I was parked a block away from your apartment when they took me. It’s not like you were following me everywhere.”

Derek shakes his head. “Maybe I should have been.”

“Dude, no. I know you can’t stand me, please don’t become more of a weird martyr stalker because of this. I can handle myself.”

Derek’s frown is legendary, but Stiles has never seen it pointed so squarely on himself before. “I don’t - that’s not true?”

“Feeling guilty and following people from the shadows are like your two most important skills. Your oeuvre. Your modus operandi.” Stiles waves at Derek. “It’s like your whole thing.”

Derek’s frown is lifted slightly and Stiles thinks the puff of air that leaves his nose might almost be a laugh. “No, not - I meant the, ‘can’t stand you’ part.”

“It’s cool, I know when I’m too pathetic to hang out with. As long as you let me have visitation rights with Scott I’ll survive.”

“I didn’t - I shouldn’t have - I’m sorry.”

Stiles has about had it with this shit. “Derek. I really don’t want your pity here. You were right, that night. I’m the stupid, weak human you hate, you don’t have to force yourself to put up with me. Please go away.”

A complicated series of emotions passes over Derek’s face - mostly he looks sad - but he nods and steps to the window, looking back at Stiles for a long moment, before ducking out and closing the window behind himself.

Stiles sighs and covers his face with his hands once again. Every conversation with Derek feels like one step forward, three hundred steps back and tripping into a peat bog.


	5. The Induction

The only reason Stiles doesn’t vibrate out of his skin before the end of the school day is the bay leaf gripped between his fingers like a lifeline. The weird awareness it brings him - since when could he tell every time someone passed by a classroom in the hallway - doesn’t help particularly much when teachers call on him, but most are so shocked by his prolonged silence that they ignore him entirely.

The furry contingent of the student body are not so kind.

“Dude, is that a bay leaf?” Scott exclaims after English. “Are you going to make a stew or something?”

“Wow, very funny Scott. You’re a real comedic genius over here. Do you want to roast me for being an unlovable outcast with only one friend next, or will you go for my 30 years out of date double-post grunge aesthetic?” He points to his plaid shirt and raises his eyebrows at Scott.

“Jeez, okay, no need to be so defensive, I was just asking a question.”

Stiles puts on a high pitched voice and says, “hey Scott: is that weird growth of hair on your face in the light of the full moon lupus or is your puberty just that delayed?”

Scott punches Stiles in the shoulder, but he can’t help laughing a little bit. “You’re just cranky because you got kidnapped by alphas.”

Stiles can see Ms. Blake watching them from the corner of his eye, and he shuffles Scott out of the room before they say anything incriminating in front of her.

He gets a text from a number he doesn’t recognize at the end of the day, saying nothing but _”go to Deaton”_.

“Uh, Scott, do you recognize this number?” Stiles asks as they shuffle out of school in a crowd of high schoolers anxious to get home.

Scott bends down to look. “Isn’t that Derek’s number?”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “I should have known, only one werewolf has cornered the market on terse commands. Guess I’ve got to do it then or he’ll pee on me or something.”

“Ew, dude.”

“I don’t know, I usually try not to get on his bad side since he insulted me in front of our entire social circle.”

“Are you still not over that?”

“Still not - Scott! That was humiliating. I might never get over it; I’ll probably waste away like a Victorian maiden with a broken heart.” Stiles dramatically drapes a hand over his forehead and swoons onto Scott.

Scott scoffs and pushes Stiles away into a small pack of freshmen who make indignant noises. “I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean it. His heartbeat was intense after Peter showed up with you in his arms, but it was all over the place when he said that stuff.” Scott seems earnest - though when does he not - so Stiles doesn’t push it.

“Sure, whatever. Well, I gotta go to Deaton’s if you want a ride.”

“Can’t leave my bike, sorry. I’m headed there for a shift anyway, maybe I’ll meet you there?”

“Cool,” Stiles says, waving Scott away and heading to his own car. That Erica is leaning on.

She’s looking better - back to the leather jacket and aviators look that is intimidatingly hot on her. She nods at Stiles and moves to the passenger side.

“Uh, what are you doing?” Stiles asks.

“Taking you to the vet.”

“Like a stray? Nah, I don’t think so.”

“Derek said -“

Stiles raises his brows critically. “Do I really look like I care what Derek said?”

Erica rolls her eyes. “Shut it, Stilinski. You saved my life, just let me bodyguard for you while there’s a pack of evil super strong werewolves in town.”

“If they’re super strong, how are you supposed to protect me from them?” Stiles asks, but he unlocks the passenger side door anyway and starts inching his way out of the parking lot when Erica swings in.

“It’s less protecting you and more distracting them until you manage to run away.”

“Wow, Erica Reyes throwing herself on a grenade for me? You know what, it’s not a bad look on you.”

Erica punches him not so lightly on the shoulder as they get onto the open road. “Are you complaining that I’m willing to sacrifice myself for you? I could be making out with Boyd _and_ Cora right now and I’m stuck with your loser ass.”

“What is it with your pack and insulting me? Do you share notes for the express purpose of making me feel bad about myself?”

“It’s an expression of love, Stilinski,” Erica says, patting Stiles’ cheek. He jerks away and almost drives them off the road.

It’s a relief when he gets out of the car at Deaton’s clinic and hears Scott’s new motorcycle revving up behind him. At least he won’t be alone with Erica and Dr. Mysterio the Magical Vet.

His heart drops when he walks into the clinic and sees Derek leaning against the counter. Great. Derek’s feeling guilty and following him around now. Stiles decides to deal with it like he deals with most problems in his life: avoiding it entirely.

He stalks past Derek into the back, where he knows Derek can’t go without Deaton opening the mountain ash barrier thing he set into the counter. Small blessings, Stiles thinks to himself. He finds Deaton in one of the examination rooms in the back, gathering a small pile of what look like wood chips and medallions.

“What’s up, doc?” Stiles asks, leaning his elbows on the table. “I was told to come talk to you.”

Deaton nods. Instead of answering Stiles’ questions, or being useful in _any way at all_ , Deaton hands him a wood chip. Stiles carefully takes it, turning it around in his hand, looking back up to Deaton periodically. “Is this some kind of protection from the alphas or something?”

“Focus on it. Think of it like the mountain ash - imagine new growth.”

“Yeah, yeah, use my magic powers on it, I got it,” Stiles says, ignoring the raise of Deaton’s eyebrow, and rubbing it slowly between his fingers. It’s not nearly as calming as the bay leaf, which he considers pulling out of his pocket, but after a solid minute of rubbing, he feels his head fill with calm silence, an internal pressure that feels warm and solid. He turns it on the wood in his hands and imagines stretching out his limbs after a long sleep, the aching desire to touch the sky, and the smell of rain in the morning.

Deaton makes a sound, and Stiles looks down at the woodchip to see the hue of its flesh faintly green. He can feel the tiniest nub of a shoot growing under his finger, as if the wood has come back to life.

“Is this normal?” Stiles asks Deaton, whose eyebrows would be touching his hairline if he actually had any hair. He knows he should probably feel panic right now, but he’s still in that headspace that leaves no room in his mind but for the wood in his hands. “Am I some kind of magic genius or something? Not that I’m complaining, I would just kind of like to know what’s going on right now.”

The vet squints at Stiles. “That’s not how it works.” He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Have you been practicing with mountain ash since the club?”

“Not… specifically?” Stiles shifts guiltily. “I found some books on herbs in the library. I’ve been doing stuff with those, I guess.”

“You’re the one who warded Scott’s house? And the woods?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess? I was just messing around, figured I should try stuff out.”

Deaton nods to himself. “The wards on the McCall house were sloppily done,” Stiles makes a face, but Deaton keeps going, “but certainly not without power.”

“Thanks, I guess? I’m not sure that I prefer forthcoming Deaton if he’s going to give a bunch of backhanded compliments, you know?”

Deaton rolls his eyes. Why does everyone seem to be rolling their eyes at Stiles? “You have remarkable skill already, without any training. The fact that you could induce growth at all in the hazel is impressive. Most young druids can barely wet the wood.”

“Is that what I am? A druid?” Stiles asks, not sure what he wants the answer to be.

“Not yet. The term we might use for you is a hedge witch - though certainly, you could become a druid with training.”

“What is, uh, the difference there?” Stiles asks.

“Our sources of power: druids call on the power of sacred trees and the gods Cernunnos and Danu. Hedge witches use more _unrefined_ sources of power. Herbs, sacrifice, and blood.”

“Seriously? You’re going to insult my herbs like this? I’ve beaten off two alpha werewolves now thanks to these herbs. They’re not to be fucked with.”

Deaton raises his hands in a pacifying gesture. “Hedge witches have power, Stiles, but their power isn’t as sensitive. Your wards were sloppy not just because you lack training and experience, but also because the powers you called on were too broad.”

Stiles begrudgingly agrees, though he’d really prefer Deaton not be correct. “Each herb has so many meanings and uses, so I can’t be as precise with them.”

“Druids have spent generations refining and testing magic to be precise and effective - it’s why mountain ash can create an impenetrable barrier to the supernatural, but your wards would at most deter those with ill intent, not stop them completely.”

“See, but in some ways that makes it sound like the herbs are more precise - my wards can tell when someone has ill intent, but mountain ash can’t differentiate between friend or foe,” Stiles points out.

Deaton looks surprised. It might be the first time Stiles has ever seen that look on the guy’s face. “That’s - I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll have to research it, but you could be right. The sacred trees are precise in their use, but in many ways they are inflexible. Broom can heal grave wounds, but it can’t stop sickness.”

“Seems like druids might have something to learn from hedge witches,” Stiles says, feeling triumphant in defending his mom’s herbs from the only expert on magic he knows.

”Possibly. That’s not what Derek asked me to speak with you, though. We need to train, and you need to protect yourself. The alpha pack will almost certainly be coming after you now that they know who you are.”

“How are you so sure they know -”

Deaton smiles enigmatically. “I have my sources.”

Stiles groans. “I thought we were over being vague like that, dude. Shouldn’t you be more forthcoming if I’m going to be your magic padawan?”

“That will be your first lesson, then: secrets are deeply important. Magic isn’t something that you’re born with - anyone can learn to use it if they apply themselves. Druids keep ourselves secret so we can make sure no one uses that power for evil.”

“Great power, great responsibility, makes sense. How do you know that someone is, like, good enough?”

“We don’t. We have to watch our students carefully and make sure they don’t use what we teach them for ill.”

“So, uh, were you watching me when you showed me how to do the mountain ash thing?”

Deaton nods. “You seemed like a good candidate. I wanted to see what you would do with what you learned. It seems my decision has paid off.”

“So, what happens if I go evil or whatever. Are you going to hunt me down?” Stiles asks, pretty sure he already knows the answer.

“If I have to.”

Stiles swallows. “Cool. I’ll do my best to make sure that doesn’t happen, then.”

“Please do.”

* * *

It turns out Stiles has skipped straight to druidism 102 because of his practice over the summer. Deaton doesn’t bother trying to teach him to meditate or focus his chi or whatever - he goes straight into making Stiles craft a wand. Well, ‘stave’, but Stiles refuses to call it that for dick joke purposes.

Deaton grabs a handful of wooden dowels from the supply closet in his office and lays them in front of Stiles. “Close your eyes and enter your trance. Feel for the wood that calls to you and answer it.”

Stiles reluctantly places his hand above the dowels and closes his eyes. After a few moments of concentration he feels himself enter the trance and the sudden awareness on the edge of his vision is the same he felt when he sensed the alpha in the vault - as if the wood is alive under his hand, whispering to him.

He lets his hand roam over the dowels, feeling each one in turn: heat and the scent of copper; the smell of warm milk and wind in his hair; cold on his skin and the faint sound of song; and, oh, his hand linger as he feels an intense and sudden safety. A shroud hangs over his skin that promises to safeguard and shield. He picks it up immediately, unthinkingly, and clasps it to his heart.

“Flying rowan. Unsurprising, all things considered,” Deaton says, jotting down something on his notepad.

“Uh, what does that mean?”

“Flying rowan - the most powerful of the warding trees. They grow on dead branches of trees where birds lay droppings containing rowan seeds, in this case an oak.”

“Like a parasite? Sick. What do I do with it?” Stiles asks, staring a little at the simple wooden dowel in his hand. It’s just under three feet long, and around two inches in diameter. He feels like he could get some solid thwacks on unsuspecting werewolves with it if he wanted to; more like a club than a Harry Potter wand.

“For now, keep it on your skin at all times. Spend as much time as you can meditating over it.” When Stiles gestures for Deaton to explain, he sighs. “You need to attune yourself to it, let it get to know you, before we can proceed. Come back in three days, and then we can start working on empowering it.”

He picks it up, feels the solid weight of it in his hands, and moves to leave the room. Stiles pauses in the door frame before turning back to look at Deaton. “Hey, just wondering: did you know my mom?”

Deaton looks confused. “Claudia Stilinski? Can’t say I did.”

“Her maiden name was Gajos? If you don’t know anything it’s fine, but…” Stiles pauses when he sees Deaton’s face.

“Gajos? Like the daughter of Mieczyslaw Gajos?”

“Uh, yeah, that’s the one. Did you know grandpa Mietek?”

“I never had the pleasure of meeting him, but the Gajos family was one of the largest druidic wholesale suppliers in North America before Mr. Gajos died. No one knew why his children stopped the business; by all accounts they were very successful.” Deaton stops to think for a moment. “I suppose his daughter was named Claudia; I never put that together.”

“And Herod? Uh, my uncle?” Stiles asks, hope in his voice. “Did you know him?”

“I’ve certainly heard of Herod Gajos, though not everything I’ve heard was good. Perhaps we can speak of him another time,” Deaton says, though Stiles is sure he has no intention of ever revealing exactly what he’s heard about uncle Herry.

“Sure, sure,” Stiles says. “Were they - do you know if they were druids?”

“They weren’t.”

“Not even a little? They were just normies who grew herbs for everyone else?”

“Herbs, trees, and certain animals, yes,” Deaton says, nodding.

“Oh. I guess I figured they must have known something. Like, how can you hear about magic and not want to mess with it?”

“Magic isn’t everything Stiles. For many people whose lives aren’t inundated with the supernatural, it’s not any more useful than being a doctor. Do you want to be a doctor?”

“Well, no, but - I mean -“

“Magic wouldn’t have saved her,” Deaton says, lowly, kindly.

“That’s not - I didn’t -”

“I know.” Deaton puts a hand on Stiles’ shoulder and gently guides him out of the examination room and into the lobby of the clinic, where Derek is waiting. Stiles pulls his mind away from thoughts of his mother so he doesn’t do anything embarrassing like cry in front of Derek Hale.

Derek opens and closes his mouth, looking incredibly uncomfortable. Stiles wants to keep on walking and ignore whatever Derek is about to say, but Derek is blocking the path out of the clinic.

Stiles raises an eyebrow expectantly. “Yes?”

“How did it go?” Derek grunts, looking down at his arms cross over his chest. It’s adorably defensive considering Stiles is about as far from a threat to Derek as you can get, especially without his herbs.

“Fine? Deaton agreed to train me. I’ll be out of your hair soon, don’t worry,” Stiles jokes, starting to edge around Derek for the door.

Derek lets out a frustrated growl and pins Stiles to the counter, hands on either side of him.

“Ah, devolving into bad habits are we? Sneaking into my bedroom, pushing me up against surfaces, growling instead of using words. Just like old times.”

“Stop - stop acting like, like no one wants you around,” Derek says, close enough that Stiles can feel his breath on his cheek. Derek takes a deep inhale and smiles a little. “You smell better.”

“Uh, what,” Stiles says. He has no idea how to react to either statement, but the sudden change of topic completely throws him.

“It’s not - I don’t like it when you don’t smell like you,” Derek stammers, looking a little embarrassed.

“... cool? I guess there’s not really any point in erasing my scent anymore if the alphas know who I am.”

Derek nods. “Good.”

Stiles’ brain only then catches up with Derek’s earlier statement. “Wait, what the fuck? What do you mean, ‘acting like nobody wants you around,’ you _literally told me that._ You don’t get to pretend like that never happened, asshole.”

Derek looks supremely flustered. “I didn’t - I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then what the hell did you mean it like? What else is ‘you’re pathetic, Stiles,’ and ‘nobody wants you here,’ supposed to mean?”

“I just - being around the pack is dangerous right now. I needed to keep you safe.”

“Well, shit, your method really sucked, man! Next time, just tell me what you need instead of acting like a jerk and insulting me.”

“I panicked. I’m - I’m sorry.” Derek looks like saying those words physically hurts him, which only mollifies Stiles slightly.

“Good. You should be.” Stiles puts out a hand to shake and Derek stares at it for a long moment. “No more treating Stiles like crap.”

Derek nods and shakes Stiles’ hand, looking perplexed by the whole thing, but putting up with it anyway.

He backs away for a moment, eyes still on Stiles’ face. His gaze drops down, almost as if he’s looking at Stiles’ mouth - and, yeah, Stiles only just realized he’s chewing his lip, whoops - and then away. “I’ll drive you home,” Derek says.

“No you won’t. I’m not leaving my Jeep here unattended.”

Derek frowns in consternation for a moment before nodding. “I’ll follow behind you.”

Stiles gives him a sidelong look, remembering what Scott said about Derek feeling protective of Stiles. A brief glimmer of hope swells in his chest. It doesn’t leave him even as he drives home, the Camaro a steady presence in his rear view mirror.


	6. The Revelation

So, finding a way to keep a two and a half inch wide, three foot long rod touching your skin at all times is perhaps, Stiles realizes, not the easiest task.

Not to mention the self control needed to keep from making dick jokes whenever he makes eye contact with Scott.

In first period he almost gets it taken away when he holds it under the desk and his pre-calc teacher thinks it’s a weapon. After that, he decides to keep it in his backpack between his legs, holding it in one hand.

The hardest part, once he figures out a system that works, is maintaining the trance while still keeping enough attention on his classes not to seem too out of it. Stiles supposes it’s probably good practice, since he won’t always have his full focus available to trance.

He read online that druids and shamans would take special herbs to enter magical trances, but those all seem to be hallucinogens that would be more detrimental to his blending in that helpful. His trance is certainly not the best he’s done, but the fact that he can take notes that are even vaguely relevant while keeping his focus feels like an accomplishment.

Ms. Blake gives him a strange look when she sees the rod in his backpack. Mostly strange in that she doesn’t seem surprised like his other teachers were, or even concerned. Just calculating.

Of course she asks him to stay back after class to talk to her. Stiles tries to make an excuse about cross country practice, but Ms. Blake steps in front of the door before he can get out. It’s a very Derek move, but it’s a lot more threatening on her even if Derek does have like eighty pounds of muscle on the woman.

“Uh,” Stiles says, darting his eyes past her and through the open door where Scott is waiting for him.

“Stiles,” Ms. Blake says, “what are you doing with that piece of wood?”

Stiles shouldn’t be blindsided by the question, but none of his other teachers had had the guts to actually ask him about the thing.

“Uh, well, you see,” he says. “It’s an art project. We’re supposed to get in touch with the materials and then make something with them that represents their, uh, true selves. I picked this,” Stiles pats the dowel, “because it seemed like the least weird out of -”

“You’re making a stave. It’s okay, Stiles, you don’t have to lie to me.”

Stiles sighs exasperatedly. “Why does everyone and their mom suddenly know about the supernatural? It’s like you can’t turn around without walking into a werewolf or a druid or something.” He pauses. “Wait, are you with the alpha pack? Are you spying on us?”

Something almost like disgust crosses Ms. Blake’s face. “No. I would never work with them. I’m just concerned for you, Stiles. You’re hanging around with a dangerous group.”

“Please, they may seem tough, but Derek’s pack are a bunch of softies. They can’t get anything done if me and Scott aren’t around to help.” Stiles isn’t sure how true it really is, but he does seem to be solving a lot of their problems recently.

“No matter what he says to you, how kind he is to you, don’t trust the Hale alpha. He wants you for power; he doesn’t care about you.” She’s close now, leaning over Stiles, and he can feel her breath on his face. It’s frightening, the intensity of her gaze on him. Something about her face is off - Stiles doesn’t know what makes him think it, but the air near her skin has a slippery quality to it.

“Lady, you seem to have a lot of baggage here. Maybe you should back off and not assume things about people you don’t know. Derek doesn’t want to hurt me, and even if he did, I could kick his ass from here to Sunday. I’ll be fine.” That is definitely a lie - Stiles has no idea if he could defend himself from Derek if the man really wanted to kill him, but he’s more than certain that Derek doesn’t want to. He’s had plenty of chances already to do so.

“Just - be careful.”

Stiles nods and rushes past when she moves out of the way, sharing a confused look with Scott.

They dart down the hallway and out to the parking lot, where the rest of the pack is waiting to escort him home.

Stiles notices Cora standing with the rest of them, which resolves that question. He’s glad she’s got a pack to stay with now. Derek is there too, looking sharply away from Stiles when he tries to meet the alpha’s gaze. Stiles frankly has no idea what Ms. Blake is concerned about - Derek is barely any nicer to him now than he was at the beginning of the summer. Less overtly and aggressively loathing of Stiles, maybe.

Honestly Stiles was getting ahead of himself the previous day when he felt hopeful just because Derek apologized to him and drove him home. By the way he growls for Scott to take Stiles home, he clearly still thinks Stiles is too weak to join his pack.

Protection isn’t the same as acceptance or inclusion, and despite being able to talk to Scott now, Stiles still feels an ache in his chest as he drives home alone, Scott following in his dinky little motorcycle.

* * *

Stiles’ homework is light enough that he finishes everything he needs done in an hour. He decides to work in the garden for the rest of the night; he feels guilty that he’s been neglecting it in favor of Deaton and werewolves.

Unsurprisingly, the plants are growing just fine, even without his help. Stiles quickly finishes pruning and watering, before retreating into the shed where they keep their gardening supplies. He thinks about what Deaton said about his mom’s family, the secrets she kept, and begins to dig through the boxes in the shed. He’s not sure what he’s looking for, some sign of her presence, something she touched, something to give him answers.

He almost doesn’t notice the little cardboard box in the very back, under a pile of fertilizer. It’s a little squashed, but he crows at the contents: it’s full of notebooks and journals. They must be hers, if they’re in the shed. This was her domain, before she died.

He flips open the first one he finds, hands shaking a little. He needs to know, there must be more to the story than what Deaton said.

Stiles sags onto the pile of fertilizer bags when he sees his mom’s neat handwriting there. She’s with him so much, in his memories and in the unspoken words between him and his dad, but seeing something concrete of hers, something _right there_ , shakes Stiles right to his core.

There’s a table of contents, which is a little surprising to Stiles. Each entry seems to be a different plant in the garden. When he flips through the journal, it seems to be his mom’s notes on how best to treat each plant to encourage bountiful growth. When Stiles brings his nose to it, it smells musty and faintly of his mother’s favorite perfume; lilac and honey. Stiles feels tears well up in his eyes.

The next book contains more notes on plants in the garden. Stiles goes through three such books before he finds something more interesting. The smallest book in the box is bound in black leather, sturdier than the spiral bound notebooks the rest of his mom’s notes are in. He runs his hands over the cover, hoping to have finally found something of his mother’s that will reveal her secrets. Maybe a spellbook? Are those a thing? He’ll have to ask Deaton.

When he opens it, there’s no table of contents. The first page is dated almost five years before Stiles was born. Rather than spells, or magic, the entry reads like a diary. Stiles digs into the bag and begins to read in earnest.

It’s. It’s so normal. His mom writes about work - in a garden or orchard or something like that - and her family. She writes about hanging out with some friends over the weekend. It’s painfully mundane.

He reads every word, reading between the lines, trying to find any sign of the supernatural. There’s just - there’s nothing there. She seems dissatisfied with her life, wanting something more than just working for her family, but there’s no mention of magic or druids. He reaches the point where grandpa Mietek dies, and his mom almost sounds relieved to get away. She talks about moving to Beacon Hills. She mentions meeting a handsome deputy at the library where she gets a job, dating him, falling for him. She talks about their wedding, how nervous she is, how happy she is with Noah - god it’s weird to see his dad’s name written out like this - and her pregnancy. The journal ends after his birth, the final entry an exhaustive discussion of how much she loves him.

Stiles feels a strange resentment that her books are so normal. It’s fucked up that when he sees the last traces of his mom, all he feels is anger. When he was a kid, he felt like his mom knew everything - if he had a question, or needed help with schoolwork, he always came to her first. Her lack of knowledge of the supernatural feels like a betrayal. How could she leave him with no answers?

There’s one final notebook in the box. Stiles flips through it half-heartedly. He stops immediately, not because it has notes on magic, or the history of the Gajos family, but because there is a photograph of one of the largest trees Stiles has ever seen nestled in the pages. It dwarfs the other trees in the picture, barely fitting into frame. Stiles guesses it must be an oak - the trunk itself is wide and thick, but not very tall. The branches, however, extend high into the sky.

Stiles can make out carvings on the tree, a series of jagged lines - maybe that celtic rune language Stiles read about the other night, he’ll have to ask Deaton about it.

The thing that strikes Stiles, and it seems also his mom, is the intense beauty of the oak. There’s something stately about it, as if it has outlived generations of its fellow trees. Stiles notes where she says it lies, feeling certainty fill his skin; the tree must still stand there. Nothing could topple it.

The notebook must be a detailing of interesting features of the preserve; it mentions the rowan tree Stiles harvested for wood when he was making wards for the sheriff’s office, among other important plants and trees.

But, still, nothing supernatural. Stiles feels, desperately, that she must have some hidden notes somewhere else, some other secrets that are too well hidden for him; this can’t possibly be all there is. He puts the gardening notebooks back in the box and clasps the journal and preserve notebook to his chest, shuffling out of the shed and inside to his room to pore over them again.

* * *

Ms. Blake keeps giving Stiles strange looks over the next couple of days, but Stiles manages to ignore her weird vibes.

He drives to Deaton’s, Scott in the passenger seat, chattering excitedly about the new World of Warcraft expansion trailer.

They bounce inside, Scott moving to man the counter, Stiles heading into the back. Deaton nods to him, motions him forward, looking intensely at the dowel in Stiles’ bag.

“How’d I do?” Stiles asks, holding the rod out for Deaton to examine. “Didn’t fuck it up too badly, did I?”

Deaton takes it in a pair of tongs that Stiles hadn’t noticed. He holds a hand over it, closing his eyes, no doubt doing some spooky druid shit to test Stiles’ power levels. His eyebrows rise steadily as his hand roams Stiles’ rod - for god’s sake, Stiles doesn’t want to imagine Deaton like that, ew - and then hands it back.

“You did well attuning with it. Now comes the harder part: you’ll have to bless and inscribe your stave.”

“Inscribe like, runes and shit? Some kind of druid futhark?”

Deaton lets out a little huff of a laugh. “We call it ogham. Each letter corresponds to one of the sacred trees, to the sacred birds, to colors, to any number of other categories. We’ll start with _beith_ , the birch letter.” Deaton frowns when he sees Stiles digging through his backpack. “Pay attention. This is the foundation of our magic.”

“No, yeah, I was just getting out my notebook so I can take notes,” Stiles clarifies, holding a spiral notebook above his head triumphantly and flipping to the back. “Okay. _Beith_ , birch tree, awesome.”

They manage to get through the whole alphabet in the span of an hour and a half, despite Stiles stopping to ask Deaton questions. Honestly, it feels a lot like the herblore he’d been studying before, only more… formal. Stiles refuses to fall into the trap of thinking the formality of druid magic makes it any better than his mother’s herbs, though.

“Do all druids make wands like this? Is this supposed to be my forever wand, like some kind of Harry Potter thing?” Stiles asks, taking a moment to think over the runes available to carve into his stave, stalling for time by talking.

“Strictly speaking, we aren’t druids per se. The word they might have used to describe us would be Ovates, the shamanic arm of druid colleges. Druids were more of philosophers than magic users.”

“So, like, is it common for Ovates or whatever to work with werewolf packs? Am I an oddity, or the norm?”

“Not all of us work with werewolf packs, but enough do that there is a special name for us, among werewolves. They call us emissaries.”

“And the emissary is like, what, the pack mage or something? Like we do magic in the best interest of the pack?”

“Not… not quite. Emissaries are, first and foremost, advisors to the alpha. Often we are kept secret from the rest of the pack; like I told you before, secrecy is our biggest asset. Emissaries are important for protecting and supporting a werewolf pack. If the pack doesn’t know the emissary, they won’t accidentally let something slip.”

“If I work for Derek’s pack, and say, you were with another pack, then would we be like, enemies or something? Would I have to go against you mano-a-mano in magical combat?”

“No. Emissaries stay neutral in conflicts, but the loss of an emissary is devastating to the alpha and the pack. It’s why alphas tend to be so protective of their emissaries.”

The words hit Stiles’ chest like a sledgehammer. Derek isn’t interested in him, or even protective of him because of some misguided fondness for hyperactive teens. No, whatever Derek is feeling, it’s because Stiles an emissary. His emissary? Stiles isn’t sure if he’s really loyal to Derek as much as Scott who is currently loosely aligned with Derek, but he can’t deny how often Derek has come to him looking for advice or research.

Regardless, Derek is just feeling magically induced protective feelings. Stiles only started practicing with herbs and staves after Derek kicked him out of the pack party; what he said that night were probably his true feelings.

“Interesting,” Stiles says, genuinely meaning it, but needing to change the topic so he doesn’t start wallowing in shitty feelings. “But, also, I’ve got to know if I’m locking myself into a specific magic build by choosing this wand, you know? Can I reset it later for a small fee?”

Deaton looks perplexed for a moment before letting out a startled laugh. “This isn’t a roleplaying game, Mr. Stilinski. No, staves are traditionally made with a specific purpose. In this case, the purpose is to protect you. If you want something else done, you’ll need to make a new stave. They’ll get easier as you practice making them.”

“Where do you get all of the wood for this kind of stuff, dude? Is that what my mom’s family was doing before my grandpa died?”

“Precisely. Magic is about components as much as it is the skill of the practitioner. It’s like… Pfizer can take willow bark and refine it into aspirin. With magic, we can concentrate some of the same compounds, as if we were refining the willowbark ourselves. We take the materials we work with and bring out their magical properties.”

“I guess you can’t keep up with an aspirin manufacturing plant, though. What’s the point of magic then?”

“What do you think the point of magic is?” Deaton asks, smile enigmatic.

“Are you really going to try to Socratic method me about magic? Do they teach you annoying druid pedagogy at druid college?”

Deaton ignores him and gestures for Stiles to answer the question.

“Well, I mean - I guess Pfizer can’t really make anti-werewolf pills, can they? Magic is useful against the supernatural even if it isn’t so useful against mundanity. Is that right?”

Deaton has that shit eating look that makes it look like he’s trying to suppress a smile. “But hunters provide protection against werewolves. Why use magic when you can call in the guns to solve a problem?”

Stiles cocks his head. “Magic isn’t always violent; if you want to solve things without killing people, hunters aren’t going to be much help.”

“That’s part of it.”

“Okay… you mentioned something about making sure people didn’t use magic for evil, right? Maybe there’s a magic source of power that we haven’t talked about yet, something you can’t get from other methods.”

Deaton looks surprised. “That’s - not what I was thinking of, but very insightful of you to notice, Stiles. The things we do, as druids or ovates or whatever you wish to call us, these things might not be considered true magic. Certainly not the kind of magic that appears in fiction with wizards and magicians.”

“Okay,” Stiles says, not really sure where this is going.

“But magic that powerful _does_ exist; you can try to harness it, if you have great hubris, but it’s dangerous and fickle. Magic like ours is useful because it allows us to see true magic for what it is, and learn to mitigate the bad and enhance the good.”

“So, uh, what is the source of true magic?” Stiles isn’t sure that he’s really all that interested in knowing. When he’d bemoaned the lack of a gun spell, it’d been with the understanding that that was an entirely fictional approach to magic; the reality that such magic _could_ exist, and that it might be a threat to him? Is a little frightening.

“True magic is made between people. The love of a mother; the understanding shared by a student and teacher; the bond of a werewolf pack; the currents of emotion and feeling that travel between us and linger in places in the world. It can do truly wondrous things.”

Stiles is a little skeptical of that. Just because your mom loves you, you can shoot off fireballs? That doesn’t seem right. That seems - it almost makes him angry, that it could mean that if he’d just loved her a bit more…

“It’s powerful, but not all powerful,” Deaton says as if reading his mind. “It can’t do everything, but what it does is profound. One might argue that the power of your herbs, or the magic of the sacred trees, is an aspect of this principle; humanity has developed relationships with these plants over thousands of years, and we tap into those relationships when we call upon their power. By imbuing them with meaning, with feeling, we have collectively imbued them with power.”

“That… makes sense, I guess, but why aren’t you teaching me how to do that kind of magic? If it’s so strong and all.”

“It’s not something you can learn, Stiles. You can’t learn how to love someone, you just have to do it. If you try to force it, nothing will happen. But under the right circumstances, it will grow even without guidance or knowledge. We can encourage it, perhaps, enhance or undo it sometimes, but harnessing it is incredibly dangerous.”

“How do you… how would you harness it?” Stiles’ voice is deathly quiet.

Deaton eyes Stiles over for a long, long moment. When he speaks, his voice bodes the end of their discussion.

“Sacrifice.”

* * *

Deaton sends Stiles home after that, instructing him to spend the weekend in his trance, carving the letters into the wood that feel right for him, that resonate with his magic and what he desires of it.

It’s much easier than practicing his trance while working on homework or during class, almost trivially so. He picks letters of protection and bounty, healing and courage. _Luis, Beith, Fearn, Huath,_ and _nGetal_. The last one is a mouthful.

Deaton tells him to imagine what he desires each letter to do, what Stiles wants from the magic of this stave, as he writes. He’s honestly not entirely sure what he wants from it, just that he desires to stay safe and to protect the people he loves.

The fact that he imagines Derek among those people feels like a cruel joke, even if he can recognize that the feelings are genuine. Stupid Derek.

Stiles is so far gone on the dude - and holy shit when did this kind of gay awakening sneak up on him - that he can’t even feel that resentful toward him. If anything, he’s mad at himself for falling for someone who is obligated to be nice to him by his pack instincts, like Stiles is that desperate for anyone to care about him. Fuck, he really is pathetic. Derek deserves better than the shitty emissary he got, who stumbles over himself crushing on his alpha who wouldn’t reciprocate in a million years. Fucking hell.

Stiles decides to trek out into the preserve to run, rather than stew in his room any longer. Deaton told him to trance with the stave more when he carved the letters in, but Stiles figures he’s due a break for his hard work.

He drives to the edge of the preserve, turns on his running music, and gets lost in the woods. There’s something he can’t express in words about the beauty of the preserve late in the afternoon, the sun gently casting the last of its light with tired fingers. Every animal feels paused, perching, waiting for the moon to rise and reveal her face to them. Stiles can relate - something about the setting sun sets him on edge, but it’s a pleasant edge.

Deaton spoke of Cernunnos and the sun as important symbols to druids, but Stiles is sure that in this moment, as Cernunnos cedes ground to Danu, the moon has never been stronger. It takes him a long moment to realize that the moon is full as it rises above the horizon; suddenly the sharp edge that the fullness in his head has taken on makes a lot more sense. The moon is calling him to frenzy.

He lets it pull him where it will, he feels what must be the currents of emotion that Deaton mentioned the previous day. They feel like strings of power, like live wires drifting scant inches from his skin, like if he touches one it will wrap around him and take everything from him, or strangle him. He follows them, the moonlight drawing them into sharp relief, wriggling and tearing through the air.

They lead into a copse of trees, the center of which is strangely empty. As Stiles jogs towards it, his focus is more on the strings that curl and twirl around each other in the air, which explains how he finds himself tripping onto an absolutely massive tree stump.

The thing must be easily as wide as he is tall, and Stiles is not short. The strings sink into the stump, coiled and winding together. Stiles wonders - there’s some kind of marking on a thick tree root near him -

And in that moment, when he leans down to read the marks, he realizes it.

This is his mother’s tree. The realization is so horrible, so painful, so unbelievable, that he immediately leans over and vomits into the grass near the stump of what was once the most beautiful tree Stiles has ever seen.

It’s - it’s like seeing a mutilated corpse in the woods. Stiles feels furious at whoever would do this to the tree. He lays his palm flat on the stump, tries to focus his mind into a trance and thinking about new growth like Deaton had him do with the hazel, but

Nothing. No moisture, no fullness in his head, no green flesh on the tree. It is as if the stump is resisting rejuvenation. Stiles is just as likely to bring the tree back to life as he is to pull the massive stump out of the ground with his own two hands.

The grief he feels is choking. Giving up on the stump feels like betraying the memory of his mom. She would have done something for the tree, Stiles is sure. He owes it to her to fix this, whatever happened.

He investigates around the stump, trying to see if there is any trace of the person who did this, but there’s nothing.

He _does_ find a side door on the stump, however, which Stiles opens and carefully steps down into. The room - which Stiles guesses is a root cellar, though he didn’t realize that the name was quite so literal - has objects twined in those vibrating strings of power that litter the air here. Stiles is certain that if he were to touch any of this stuff, he would be cursed worse than British tomb raiders breaking into pyramids.

He carefully edges back out of the cellar, away from the heavy pressure that pushes the air out of his lungs down there.

He manages to run home in time to meet his dad for dinner, glad that he doesn’t have to try to explain where he’s been.


	7. The Invitation

Stiles decides that subtlety is for people whose lives aren’t being threatened by a maniac pack of alpha werewolves, so he feels no guilt in carving his stave into the shape of a baseball bat with his dad’s old whittling knife. Even if Scott gives him a look when he shows it to his best friend.

Who cares. Now he’ll have a functional weapon against werewolves _and_ a channel for his protective magic. Honestly it’s win-win, Stiles doesn’t know what Scott’s problem is.

Scott is sitting on the couch in Stiles’ living room on Saturday, looking over his notes on the Crucible, when he says, “I think we should try to get the packs to meet. Like a peace conference.”

Stiles squints suspiciously at him. “Is this Deaton’s idea? Did he set you up for this?”

Scott rolls his eyes. “No, dude, I don’t do everything Deaton says, just the smart stuff. I just… I figured, if we try to fight we are just as likely to all die as win against them. I’d rather know what they want, what we can do to make them back off, or what concessions we can give them. Maybe we can show them that we’re too strong to mess with.”

“That is… surprisingly really smart of you. Where did this cunning, mature, cool Scott come from? Is this because Allison dumped you and now you need to prove something?”

“No! I just don’t want you to get hurt anymore, you know? I need to keep you safe.”

“Wow, man, way to make me feel like some kind of disney princess. I’m not a damsel in distress, I can defend myself just fine.” Stiles is a little hurt that everyone (read: Scott and Derek) seem to think he’s so fragile.

“That’s not it, it’s like… imagine if we tried to fight the alphas and Lydia got hurt. You’d be beside yourself, right? You don’t think Lydia is some damsel in distress, do you?”

Stiles shrugs. He probably would be pretty upset if Lydia got hurt, but she’s the least helpless person he knows.

Scott sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t want to have to kill anyone else. If sitting them down like this is the best way to keep people safe, then that’s what I want to do.”

Stiles nods. “Yeah. I - I get it. So, how do we get them all in one place, to actually talk to each other? We can’t just say ‘hey guys, let’s make a treaty!’ They’ll think it’s a trap.”

“Maybe… maybe we can make it a trap? But not like that. Tell the alphas that we want to turn on Derek, and Derek that we found something important. Then you can use your magic stuff to make it so they can’t run away, and then force them to talk?”

“That’s… I mean, not gonna lie Scott, that’s a shitty plan. What if not all of them come and we can’t trap them there? We would end up in danger. Plus, I feel like Derek isn’t happy with you after the last plan you made and didn’t tell him about. Won’t he just lose all trust in you?”

“I’ll tell him what our intention is, just not the magic trap part. I just want to make sure they don’t do anything stupid and attack the alphas before we can make a treaty, you know Derek just wants to eliminate the threat as quickly as possible. He doesn’t think about what it will cost to protect the pack, just that he has to do it. Not that he’s always wrong!” Scott quickly says, when he sees Stiles starting to defend Derek. “Just, I don’t know, I don’t think it’s the right move here.”

“I mean, if he were here, and _he isn’t_ , he would probably tell you that trying to make peace with a bunch of bloodthirsty alphas isn’t going to work, right? Like, even if you get them to agree to it, they won’t actually follow an agreement that easily, or else other packs they’ve crushed would have thought of it. If we do this, the pack has to be prepared to fight, because the alphas will be.”

Scott hangs his head, thinks for a long moment, and finally nods. “Yeah, that’s - that’s fair. I can’t have this conversation with Derek here because he’ll just alpha voice me into submission even if I’m right. It’s just the way he works, he can’t be weak in front of you or his pack.”

“Why don’t you just fucking tell him that, then? He’s not a child, Scott, he’ll listen to you if you tell him that his behavior is harming the pack. He respects you, he wants you to work with him. Tell him that being in his pack means that he can’t just discount your ideas because he doesn’t agree with them. Surely his old alpha didn’t treat the members of his pack like that, right?”

Scott doesn’t look so sure. “I can try, but I’m still not sure he won’t ignore me. Just, be prepared to do what you have to, okay? We need to try this the peaceful way, even if it probably won’t work.”

“Sure, dude. I’ll try to research werewolf treaties or something.”

They go back to working on their English essay, Stiles still thinking despairingly of the future and whether his friends will survive to see it.

* * *

Stiles gets bored researching werewolf treaties about twenty minutes in. He persists for an hour, until he’s exhausted his usual sources, and then decides to play with one of the more out there ideas he’d written down in his little notebook.

In D&D - no matter what Derek says - druids have animal companions. Stiles thinks he could really use an animal companion right now. Hanging out with Scott twice a week or so is good, it’s great honestly, but compared to last year, when they hung out every day, it’s almost unbearably isolating.

Stiles takes his bat down to the garden, plucking a few leaves from the violets there, and sits down on the comfiest lawn chair they have. The book from the library mentioned violet leaves being used to contact animal guides, whatever that means.

He figures his animal companion isn’t going to just teleport into his backyard, so he might as well practice his trance. He holds the leaves in one hand and the bat in the other, sharpening his focus down to the small veins on the violet leaves, the tiny abrasions in the carvings on the bat, the beads of condensation on the lawn chair’s metal legs.

If his dad comes home before the animal companion gets here, he’ll give it up for today. Honestly, he’s not sure if anything actually will come, but lord, he wants it so badly. If his dad allowed him to have a dog, he’d have bought a dog a long time ago; he’ll have to hope the creature is small enough that he can reasonably hide it from his dad.

Time slows and stretches, so that he sees a drop of moisture sliding down the leg of his chair in slow motion, but when he looks over to check his watch, an hour has passed. And then two.

And then he hears the quacking.

It’s almost enough to break his concentration. He hears it coming from the woods in the back of his house that border the preserve, as if it were normal for ducks to wander the woods. Maybe it’s an evil duck who sensed him trying to do magic and wants to disrupt his ritual? Are there evil ducks?

All of a sudden, his focus snaps like a rubber band stretched too far; he feels exhausted, his limbs heavy under his clothes, his eyelids drooping.

When he wakes, his dad is standing in the backdoor, staring at the duck sitting on Stiles’ chest. It gently bites Stiles’ nose, and he has to groan. He called for an animal companion and all he got was this stupid duck? What kind of shitty druid is he?

The duck is warm and heavy on his chest, though, and almost unbearably soft as he brings his fingers up to stroke its neck. It must be a boy duck - mallard? - based on the beautiful bottle green color of the head. It leans into his touch, ruffles its neck feathers, and closes its eyes. He stares at it for a long moment before looking at his dad.

The sheriff shrugs. “It doesn’t come into the house,” he says, before ducking - ha! - back inside and closing the door behind him.

Stiles keeps petting the stupid duck for the half hour before his dad calls that dinner is ready to him. He has never loved a creature more, he has decided, than he does this particular duck. He figures he really needs to name the damn thing, but any name he gives it feels wrong, somehow. He doesn’t know how to capture the spirit of the thing.

When he gets up to go to dinner, the duck tries to follow him. “Sorry, little guy, but you can’t come inside. I’ll bring you food to eat later, okay? You can eat the bugs in the garden if you want, but no eating the plants.” Stiles makes an ‘I’m watching you’ gesture to the duck. It stares back at him balefully; Stiles swears that if birds were sentient, this one would be furious with him for the insult. He shrugs before entering his home.

If it leaves, he can always call it back again, right? He eats by the window anyway, watching the duck the whole time. He tells his dad it’s to make sure the thing doesn’t eat any of mom’s plants, but really his heart rate spikes whenever it moves to the edge of their yard, as if to leave. It’s not pathetic, he just really wants a friend. A duck friend. He’s trying to make friends with a duck.

Fuck, he really is pathetic.

After dinner, he grabs a bag of frozen peas and a bowl of water out to the yard. The duck still hasn’t left, Stiles is stupidly grateful to see, and it comes waddling over when he sits down on the chair again. It manfully jumps up onto his lap with a shake of its wings and stares at him expectantly. When he pours the frozen peas into the bowl, as the internet instructed him to do, the duck absolutely shreds them. He’d be a little frightened by the intensity with which it devours every last pea in the bowl if Stiles weren’t so enamored with the little idiot.

He refills the bowl with more peas when the duck eats them all, until the duck has had its fill. It falls asleep with its head on Stiles’s chest, and Stiles thinks he might die the happiest man in the world. He also decides that no one in Derek’s pack, least of all Derek, is ever going to find out about the duck. They wouldn’t get it. They don’t need a duck to have a fulfilling social life, but Stiles isn’t as cool or furry as they are.

He would sleep in the lawn chair if his dad didn’t open the door and turn on the motion sensing light in the back, startling Stiles and the duck awake. “Come on, kid, you’ve gotta sleep in your own bed. You’ll see the duck in the morning.”

Stiles turns to the blearily blinking duck in his arms. He really, really, really doesn’t want to leave it here, but he also has to recognize that his house is not exactly duck-proofed, and his dad would murder him _and_ the duck if it dirtied the inside.

He gently picks it up and places it on the chair. “I have to go to bed now. I’m sorry, I don’t want to leave you here, but I have to. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? If you get lonely, just start quacking or something. I’ll leave my window open so I can hear you.” The duck gently places its head on Stiles’ hand, before curling up for sleep. Stiles gives it one last pat before he goes inside to sleep.

When he wakes up the next morning and runs down the stairs, his dad looks at him like he’s a madman. Stiles doesn’t care. He needs to know if the duck is okay.

When he slams open the back door, something twists in his chest. It’s not there anymore. Being abandoned by a duck really shouldn’t be as heartbreaking as it is, but Stiles slumps over on the lawn chair anyway.

When he hears quacking a few minutes later, head in his hands, he wonders if his imagination is playing tricks on him. But the quacking grows louder, until he can see the duck, _his duck_ , waddling out of the forest. He knows objectively that it’s a funny image, but he can’t do anything but throw up his hands in joy when he sees it there. Stiles scoops it up from the ground and spins it around, holding it close to his chest. The duck honks happily into his ear, but Stiles doesn’t even mind.

When he turns back to the house, he sees his dad staring at him, brows knitted in confusion. Stiles shrugs, only realizing then that he forgot to put on a shirt and now has muddy duck feet pressed against his stomach. Oh well.

He sets the duck down in the front seat of the Jeep, telling it to hold still for a few minutes, before he runs upstairs to grab a shirt. He runs back down and drives over to the veterinary clinic.

Scott almost doesn’t recognize Stiles, duck clutched close to him and expression undoubtedly crazed, when he slams inside the clinic. He doesn’t bother to stop at the counter, just ducks - the joke is never going to stop being funny - under the divider and into the back. Deaton comes out of his office, looking perplexed as Stiles thrusts his duck out triumphantly.

“Look!” Stiles says, figuring Deaton will get it.

Deaton doesn’t get it.

“Mr. Stilinski, is there something wrong with your duck? For that matter, why do you have a duck?” the vet asks, looking like he needs a solid shot of tequila in order to handle Stiles this morning.

“No, I mean, maybe, I don’t know, but, look! I didn’t think it would work, but I called for an animal companion - like, like D&D?” Deaton’s face grows more concerned and Stiles’ voice less sure as he continues his attempt at an explanation.

“Stiles,” Deaton says gently, “this isn’t D&D. I don’t know what you did, but we don’t have,” Deaton gestures expansively at the duck, “animal companions. Or familiars.”

Stiles feels confused dejection fill his chest, but he refuses to back down on this. “I swear to god, I called it. I called for it, and it came. I was just messing around, but it worked! And the duck really likes me, or at least I think it does. Probably.”

Deaton is pinching the bridge of his nose, which is growing to be a familiar gesture. Stiles doesn’t remember seeing it so much on the man before he agreed to teach Stiles. “Birds are sacred, and their movements can be used as divination, but they’re not… we don’t have magical pets, Stiles.”

“It’s not a pet!” Stiles all but shouts, clutching the duck a little bit too tightly until it quacks at him. “Sory, bud,” he says soothingly before turning back to Deaton. “He’s not a pet. If birds are sacred, then at least tell me how to, I don’t know, do magic with him.”

“That’s not… Stiles, we watch bird movements, their migratory patterns, how they move. I don’t know if…”

Stiles sighs and shifts the duck away from Deaton protectively. “Whatever, okay. No more duck talk. Uh, do you know anything about werewolf treaties, or are those fake too.”

“No, Stiles, those are real,” Deaton says, long-sufferingly. “Remember what I said about true magic, about how we encourage it to grow? It’s the same, and part of why an emissary is so important in a pack. Packs make treaties without an emissary involved, but emissary-backed treaties have power.”

“So, what, a hawthorn stave?” Stiles asks.

Deaton nods. “Carve _Ido, Gort,_ and _Coll_ into the wood. Trance with the stave for as long as you can - the longer you spend on it, the stronger the treaty will be. Some packs tattoo the symbols of the packs they’ve made treaties with onto the alpha, but all that is needed is the stave. Give one to the other pack and keep one for yourself.” Stiles nods and turns to leave, but Deaton stops him with a hand on his shoulder. “Remember what I said: it’s an old magic, and it resists containment. Don’t try to wield a treaty like a weapon, or you will be the first it bites.”

“Yeah, yeah, got it.”

“And if you plan on making a treaty with the alpha pack, be careful. They wouldn’t break a treaty once it is made, but they will resist the making.”

Stiles nods soberly. “Yeah. I’ll - I’ll be careful. This stuff seems a little bit out of my league, but if it’s what we’ve got to do to keep everyone safe, then that’s what we’ve got to do.”

Deaton smiles wanly at Stiles. “You’ll make a good emissary, Mr. Stilinski.”

Stiles shrugs, fingers playing with the feathers on the duck’s head. “If I manage to live that long.”

* * *

So, although the duck is not a pet, Stiles has found that it is intelligent to a degree that does frighten him a little bit. He would wonder about man-eating birds being a thing if he weren’t already surrounded by all kinds of absurdity. For now, the duck seems to like him well enough, and he’ll have to be happy it’s not too hungry.

But the duck is _smart._ Like, understands human speech smart. Like, can unlock doors smart. Stiles would be worried about the Jurassic park parallels but, again, at least he’s keeping it fed.

What this intelligence amounts to is, if Stiles asks _really_ nicely, and maybe gives him some treats as reward, he can sometimes get the duck to do things for him. The duck is quick to refuse, though, so Stiles doesn’t test it too much.

In D&D it always seemed like a master servant thing where the animal companion did whatever the druid asked, but honestly this feels more like the duck is the master and Stiles is its servant.

Still, it’s how he and Scott find themselves kneeling in Stiles’ backyard, desperately trying to make a deal with a duck.

“Twenty grapes,” Stiles says.

The duck doesn’t respond.

“Uh, a whole thing of grapes. Like the bags they sell in the grocery store.”

Still no response.

“Come on, man, meet me halfway here. A whole bag of grapes and a banana.”

The duck perks up a bit, looking Stiles in the eye.

“Playing hard to get, huh? That’s my boy. A bag of grapes, a banana, and a peach, but no complaining about your peas for the rest of the week.”

The duck holds out for a few moments, looking coyly away, but in the end he loudly quacks in agreement and takes the letter from Stiles’ hand.

“And you know where it is? Their hideout?”

The duck stares at Stiles blankly for a few moments, clearly exasperated, before waddling off into the woods in the opposite direction of the warehouse Scott had smelled the alpha pack at.

“Uh,” Scott begins, looking between Stiles and the duck, who is swiftly disappearing in the underbrush.

“Don’t - just trust the process, dude. All will be well,” Stiles says, wagging a finger in front of Scott’s face, before dragging him inside to work on their physics homework.

* * *

Stiles decides to tell Derek directly. As nice as the duck message was - and he had to assume it was sent because Scott said the duck smelled like alpha and whenever Stiles started to doubt that it happened the duck bit his fingers - he can’t afford to pay for that much fruit again.

Plus, it’s not particularly dignified, even if Deaton’s book of birdlore, carefully negotiated for after the duck message, says that ducks are a highly sacred druidic animal.

So Stiles shows up at Derek’s door, wearing his best outfit and fiddling nervously with the sleeves of his plaid shirt. He rolls them up before he knocks, just in case Derek likes that better, and then waits until the door opens.

Derek squints at him. “What happened?” He asks, moving so that Stiles can come in, but not turning away. He’s wearing sweatpants, which is new for him, but Stiles can’t help the way his eyes linger on the curve of Derek’s ass. Wow.

“Uh…” Stiles begins, but his train of thought completely derails when Derek motions to the one couch in the loft. For Stiles to sit in. Next to Derek. The hottest person he has ever seen in his life. “Uh…”

“Is Scott dead?” Derek asks.

Stiles pulls his eyes away from Derek’s cheekbones. To his credit, they are _very_ pretty cheekbones. “What? No.”

“Then what do you want?” Derek says, slumping down next to Stiles on the couch.

They’re close. Close enough that Stiles could reach over and thread his fingers through Derek’s hair, could drag Derek’s mouth to his lips, or his cock -

“Uh, we’re having a peace summit. At the, um, there’s this giant tree stump in the preserve. You might have seen it, maybe not, don’t really know what you guys get up to out there, but, yeah. Peace summit.”

Derek raises his eyebrows at Stiles. Stiles wasn’t aware that eyebrows could be attractive before Derek, but boy Derek’s are doing _something_ to Stiles.

“Uh, the, um, we invited the alpha pack. To. To the stump. We’re going to try to make a treaty with them. You’re uh - you’re going to come. With your pack.”

“I will?” Derek says, which isn’t disagreement. Stiles isn’t sure he could handle rejection of any kind in this moment.

“You will. You’ll come and you won’t fuck it up by attacking them. You’ll be a good boy, or, I don’t know, as good as it’s possible for you to be given the circumstances.”

Derek nods.

Derek nods. At Stiles. Uh. “Uh.”

“If they do anything funny, I’ll kill them,” Derek says.

“Okay, cool, good, we’re just going to ignore that I called you a good boy, that didn’t happen, awesome, love that, well, if you’ve got the message, I guess I’ll just -“

Derek grabs Stiles’ wrist as he tries to stand. “When?”

Stiles looks at Derek’s hand around his wrist, warm and a little scratchy from Derek’s callouses, and imagines that hand wrapped around his dick -

“Uh,” he squeaks. “The night of the third quarter. The half moon. Wednesday after next. Be there at midnight.”

He doesn’t even get out a ‘bye’ as he flees Derek’s apartment, hoping his blood chooses not to evacuate the rest of his body and take up residence in his dick, based on how hard he is in his pants. Wearing tight jeans was a bad idea.

He thinks he can hear Derek laughing inside, which, cool, humiliation is really not Stiles’ kink, he’s really not fucking loving that. He knows Derek can probably smell his arousal on him, or at the very least notice all of the clear signs that Stiles wants to jump his bones, and the fact that he’s laughing about it feels like such a punch in the dick. In the already borderline painfully hard dick.

He settles into his bed and imagines calling Derek ‘good boy’ in some other situations, and maybe _not_ having the man laugh at him for it. It kind of poisons the fantasy midway, and he goes to sleep without even managing to get off.

* * *

Stiles wakes in the night, stretching languidly on his bed, and doesn’t startle when he sees Derek next to him, unclothed and smiling softly. He traces a finger across Derek’s cheekbone, leans in, and kisses him instead.

Derek hums against his lips, quirks his mouth in what must be a smile, and opens for Stiles to lick into him.

Stiles climbs on top of Derek, holding his wrists down above his head, and continues kissing him, rubbing his erection against Derek’s stomach in the slowest, most sensual dry hump he can pull off.

He can feel Derek’s cock pressing hard against his balls and his thigh, and he drops a hand down to wrap around it. He doesn’t stop kissing Derek even as Derek lets his head fall back and moans breathily.

Stiles pulls back to look at the man underneath him, to get a fill of every inch of beautiful skin, and Derek writhes on the bed as Stiles watches. His hands are bound together behind his back, tied to his feet; his legs are individually wrapped in beautiful zigzagging patterns that seem to render him completely immobile; his stomach - whew, that stomach - is the only part of him left bare; and his chest is wrapped like his legs, with even spaces around the nipples to suck and lick. The ropes force Derek’s knees and hips in the air, his cock lolling beautifully against the knots around his crotch.

Stiles drops and gently bites a nipple. The moan that Derek lets out shoots right to Stiles’ cock; he can feel it leaking a trail of precum where it rubs against Derek’s abs. Stiles laves the nipple he bit, an apology and a promise, before moving to the other. Wouldn’t want to mess up the pretty symmetry of Derek’s body.

Derek is gasping Stiles' name, straining against the ropes as if to reach him, and Stiles sits back, not giving Derek what he wants until Stiles is good and ready.

When Derek finally stills for him, Stiles moves to straddle Derek’s chest, his cock lying against Derek’s pretty face. Stiles feels like he could come just from that image, but he pulls back his hips slightly and gently opens Derek’s mouth with his thumb.

Derek sucks it into his mouth lewdly, as if demonstrating for Stiles what he can do, and then Stiles pulls his thumb out and moves his cock to fill Derek’s mouth -

And his alarm is screeching at him.

To wake up.

Because it was a dream. Just a dream. Derek would no doubt rather shoot himself in the foot with a wolfsbane bullet than have sex with Stiles.

Shit.

It was a nice dream, though.


	8. The Summit

The thing about living with an overly intelligent duck that can open doors is that you start to get used to seeing a duck in places that a duck honestly has no business being. 

When Stiles stumbles down stairs and into the kitchen for breakfast, he doesn’t even react when he sees the duck sitting at the table with his father, eating politely from a bowl of peas. His father doesn’t react either, which is perhaps the more surprising thing. 

Stiles sits down, still holding a stave of hawthorn in each hand where he gripped them in his sleep. He maintains the trance even as his dad asks him about his plans for the day. “Nothing much,” “coming right home after school,” and “nah, I’m not seeing Scott,” come without much intention on Stiles’ end; his entire focus is on the staves and moving cereal from the bowl to his mouth without losing his grip. 

He’s a little amazed, in a detached way, how used to magic his dad has become. Not the results, which Stiles is perfectly happy to never show him, but the process of crafting them. Stiles has spent the past week gripping these two staves like his life depends on it, taking them with him wherever he went, and his dad stopped giving him weird looks after the first day or two. He supposes practicing magic like this at least keeps him safe at home in his dad’s eyes, and doesn’t involve him lying off his ass. 

And, plus, it’s not like he isn’t helping. Making the hawthorn staves is good, if it manages to send the alpha pack away. Who cares if his social life has become a little stunted? He doesn’t need to hang out with Scott, he’s got a duck. 

Stiles sighs, stands up, and gets ready for school. He has cross country practice today, but he knows Finstock won’t give him a weird look just for carrying a couple of wooden poles around. He’ll just pass them off as weight training again. 

The only downside to the plan is how much harder it is to maintain his trance during class, while trying to pay attention and take notes. It's getting easier now that he’s had a week’s practice, and he wonders if he’s getting stronger. Is this like doing brain reps in his mind gym? Training on druid weights, or something? 

When he gets home, he decides to take a break from hawthorn. Stiles grabs the hazel branch he nabbed from a grove in the preserve he read about in his mom’s journal, rubs his hands over it gingerly, focusing his mind almost immediately. 

Whew. Yeah. Definitely stronger. Stiles can feel how easily the trance spreads over him, how much more full his mind feels, the almost intense pressure of his gaze on the wood. He can’t even think of any new dick jokes, that’s how focused he is. Brain reps in his mind gym, indeed. 

He carves the hazel stave the next morning before school, taking care to imagine the tree as it was in his mom’s photograph: beautiful, strong, and _alive_. When he’s done, he picks up the two hawthorn staves and scoots off to school. 

* * *

Stiles feels almost grateful that focusing on his hawthorn staves takes up so much of his mental energy that he can’t even manage to worry about the treaty negotiations happening that night. Scott, on the other hand, is mildly freaking out. 

“Dude. Dude! You had better stay away from the fighting if something happens. I don’t want to see you getting hurt, Stiles,” Scott says. 

Stiles nods absently, rubbing a thumb over a stave in each hand, and closes his eyes. He needs this treaty to be as strong as he can get it. 

“I’m serious, Stiles. If something bad happens, I want you to run away.” 

“You don’t have to worry, Scott. I’ve been practicing with the bat. I’m more worried about how we’re going to get them to agree to stop fighting.” 

“Leave that part to me,” Scott says, and despite himself, Stiles finds himself feeling comforted by the thought that Scott has this, at least, firmly in hand. 

When the alphas arrive half an hour before midnight, and before Derek’s pack, Stiles is leaning on the stave of hazel planted between the roots of the stump, carved baseball bat in one hand and duck clutched under his other arm. 

He knows better than to think he looks even mildly intimidating, but that’s less important to him than having his implements and duck nearby him. 

The man standing in front, who is wearing red tinted glasses and tapping a cane in front of him, scoffs in Stiles’ direction. “This is it? This is who you’re turning on the Hale boy with?” he asks. 

Stiles rolls his eyes and swings his bat lazily in a circle. “Wouldn’t be the first time one of you assholes had underestimated me.” He lets his trance wash over him and swings his bat to point at the alphas, as if throwing something from it. The alphas don’t have time to react before they are surrounded by a barrier of mountain ash. 

Stiles is glad none of them were looking at their feet, where they might have seen mountain ash scattered on the ground, inert from the sugar Stiles mixed it with. It’s certainly an impressive looking move, if you don’t know the setup it takes. 

The woman who kidnapped Boyd, Erica, and Cora growls at Stiles, but she’s cut off when Derek and his pack roll up from the other side of the clearing. 

Stiles rolls his shoulders and throws a handful of mountain ash at his friends. He doesn’t want to reveal his trick to the alphas where they can actually see it happening. 

The blind man turns in Stiles’ general direction and asks, “what is this? You plan to kill us both?” 

Stiles lets out a squeaky laugh, betraying his nervousness a bit too much. “Do I look that stupid? I know there are more of you lurking around, if I try anything baldy’ll just kill me.” 

He hears a snarl from just outside the clearing, assuring him that Ennis is, indeed, listening. 

Stiles gestures vaguely in the direction of the snarl. “See? This is a precaution, to make sure you don’t try to murder each other before we can manage to get this treaty done.” 

Scott saunters into the clearing and stands at Stiles’ elbow. Again, the image is _not_ intimidating, considering the duck on display, but Stiles feels a little bit better with Scott by his side. 

“We’re here to negotiate an end to this conflict,” Scott begins, his voice steady and sure even as Stiles’ heart is near beating out of his chest. He’s desperately glad he remembered his mallow flower. 

Derek nods, his expression a little tight. Maybe from the circle of mountain ash, maybe from Scott, who is supposed to be his beta, commanding the negotiations. Stiles isn’t sure. 

The blind man, clearly the leader of the alpha pack, merely raises his eyebrows. “What on earth could you give us that would be worth leaving for?” 

Scott smiles serenely. “Your lives, for one.” When the blind guy laughs, Scott turns to Stiles. “You brought the stuff, right?” 

Stiles’ brain blanks for a solid moment, completely unsure what the hell Scott is talking about. He laughs it off with a, “oh, yeah, no worries.” 

He digs through his bag and pulls out a little baggy of wolf’s bane. He figures Scott has to mean something like this, though Stiles sure as fuck isn’t ready to kill anyone tonight. 

“If you don’t agree to a treaty, Stiles will knock you out and let out the Hale pack. I doubt your friends,” Scott points into the trees, probably a good deal more precisely than Stiles had, “can survive against an entire pack and an emissary. And then Derek will kill you where you sleep.” 

The blind man’s brows furry in Scott’s direction. “Who are you, boy?” 

“For tonight, a mediator. No one needs to get hurt.” 

The blind man nods. 

Scott turns to Derek, who nods as well. “Let’s start by discussing our terms. Alpha pack, name your representative and your goals in coming to Hale territory.” 

Scott sounds weirdly formal as he says this, as if he’s practiced it. Stiles wonders if he consulted with Deaton on this, or if he just wrote out his lines. 

“Deucalion. We come to recruit Derek Hale.” 

Stiles remembers what uncle Herry told him about the alpha pack. They wanted Derek to kill his pack to gain power and join them. 

Scott turns to Derek and motions for the same. 

“Derek Hale. I want you to leave us and our territory alone.” 

Scott looks a little lost. Stiles can understand why; he has no idea how to reconcile these two desires. They can threaten the alphas to leave, but then they’ll just come back and try to kill Stiles. They need the alpha pack to willingly enter the treaty for Stiles to make it work, and he has no idea what to do. 

“Scott, can you grab the staves for me? From the cellar?” Stiles asks, trying to buy his friend some time. Scott is good at thinking on his feet, Stiles is sure he can come up with something. 

Of course, when Scott enters the cellar, Stiles doesn’t have the chance to react before Ennis and a younger alpha, who looks remarkably close to Stiles’ age, rush out of the woods and toward the cellar that Scott entered. 

Stiles stands paralyzed for a moment, unsure of what to do, before Derek hisses, “break the barrier,” to him. Stiles nods shakily, rushing over and sweeping some mountain ash out of the circle with his bat. 

Derek and Boyd rush for the root cellar, while Isaac and Erica stand between Stiles and the alpha pack, still stuck in their own barrier. 

Deucalion is smiling, as if everything is going according to plan, which makes Stiles want to punch him or hit him in the face with his bat. Probably the latter if he doesn’t want to break his hand. 

Derek struggles to try to open the door for a minute, long enough that Stiles is thinking desperately of the nearest broom tree in the preserve, and how to try to heal whatever horrible wounds Ennis has given Scott, before the door bangs open and he hears a howl from the cellar. 

Stiles is still an amateur at identifying howls, but it really doesn’t sound like one of Scott’s. 

Deucalion’s smile is gone the instant he hears it. His face pales. “No.” 

The alpha who ran down with Ennis barrels past Derek, running like a bat out of hell. “He, he killed -“ the boy pants. “Ennis is -“ 

Scott stumbles out of the cellar, dazed and spattered with blood. Deucalion roars when he sees him, the sound so terrifying that Stiles actually falls to the ground and curls up on himself. 

“You planned this,” Deucalion says. “You set us up and you killed -“ he chokes out. “This is war, Hale. No more second chances: I’ll kill your pack and everyone you love, and then I’ll strip you of every memory you have until all you have left is the knowledge that you are alone in this world.” 

Derek full-body flinches at the words, and Stiles can hardly blame him. The intensity with which the alpha says it feels like a pressure against his windpipe. 

Derek grabs his betas, minus Scott, and flees without a word. Stiles sighs at the alpha pack. “Sorry about your dude. For all that he was a murderous asshole, he didn’t deserve to die.” 

Deucalion sets his non-existent gaze on Stiles and he immediately regrets ever saying anything. “Don’t pretend like you weren’t in on it, boy. It won’t save you from what is to come.” 

Stiles swallows thickly, before running after Scott into the preserve. 

He catches up to his friend by the hazel grove, Scott with his arms wrapped around his chest and shuddering in the cool night air. “I didn’t do it,” he says, sounding more like he needs to convince himself than Stiles. 

“Flash your eyes for me, wolf boy.” 

Scott looks at Stiles bemusedly, but he still flashes his eyes. Gold as usual. 

“Yup, you didn’t do it. If you had killed Ennis, you’d be an alpha.” Stiles fidgets for a moment. “So, uh, who did? Was it that alpha that went in with him?” 

Scott shakes his head. “I don’t - when I went down there, something paralyzed me. It was me, it looked just like me, but when Ennis came in it stabbed him in the neck and laid him down on the roots of the tree. And then they just… disappeared.” 

“So, what, someone stole your identity and murdered an alpha? Do we have a phantom Scott on the loose? Work with me here, what’s going on?” 

“I… I don’t know. I guess I’ll call Deaton. You should go talk to Derek, explain what happened. I don’t - he probably thinks I did it, and I don’t want to get yelled at after watching a man bleed out from the neck.” 

Stiles winces in sympathy. “Yeah, dude, no problem. I’ll defend your honor, go talk to Deaton and get some rest, okay?” 

They split up, Scott limping home and Stiles driving off in his Jeep, anxious to get as far away from the alphas as they can before they break out of the barrier. 

* * *

Stiles leaves the duck in the Jeep when he arrives at Derek’s loft. He doesn’t want any werewolves to take out their pent up aggression on his feathered friend. 

And by ‘leaves’, Stiles asks politely for it to stay in the car. 

He trudges up the steps reluctantly, a little scared of having to explain Scott’s innocence to Derek. Not to mention having to face the guy again when the last time they spoke, Derek out and out laughed at Stiles’ attraction to him. Not cool. 

Stiles hears speaking before he manages to reach the right floor on the fire escape. When he realizes it’s Peter and he sounds incensed, Stiles can’t help himself. He drops down and listens in. 

“You can’t - stop acting like a _child_ , Derek. Is this what Talia would want from you, to curl up at their feet and let them kill you?” Peter asks, pacing around the recliner Derek is sitting on. 

“Mom would _never_. Don’t even fucking suggest that, Peter. Not - not killing an innocent person isn’t the same as letting the alphas win. If anything, he’d be more valuable to the pack alive.” 

Peter laughs. “Now you’re going to suggest he work with your pack? Why would he want to when you rejected him so soundly not three months ago?” 

Derek’s face becomes clouded, but he sets his jaw and looks Peter in the eye. “Because he’s a good person. Because he went out of his way to try to solve this without bloodshed.” 

“If you involve him now, all you’re doing is guaranteeing that he’ll be hurt.” 

“What, and it’s better to trick him into falling in love with me and then killing him?” 

Stiles feels his breath strangle in his throat. 

“If it saves the pack, then maybe it is,” Peter says. 

“I’ll consider it,” Derek says coldly. 

“If you don’t, maybe someone else will have to,” Peter says nonchalantly, but Stiles sees Derek grab him by the throat and slam him into the wall when he peeks into the window. 

“Don’t touch him,” Derek says, his voice a low growl. His eyes are scarlet, bright like blood. 

Stiles can hear wet coughing as he ducks back down. “Aren’t you being a little overprotective, Der?” Peter asks, his voice hoarse. “He’s not even your emissary.” 

Derek is silent for a long moment. “He’s important.” 

There’s no more talking, but Stiles can almost hear Peter’s smirk as he stalks out of the loft’s main door. 

He waits an agonizing fifteen minutes before standing up and knocking at the fire escape door. Derek looks a little surprised to see him, but he opens the door anyway. 

“Are you okay,” Derek asks. 

Stiles genuinely doesn’t know the answer to that question, so he says “Scott didn’t do it,” instead. 

Derek sighs. “I know. He’s still my beta. I don’t think that matters much to the alpha pack, though.” 

Stiles nods. “So, uh, you got any ideas for strategies against -“ 

“You should join the pack,” Derek blurts out. He looks horrified to have said the words aloud. 

Stiles kind of gets where he’s coming from. “I mean, that’s probably smart now that the alphas hate my guts, but I’ll be fine. You don’t have to make yourself uncomfortable for my sake.” 

“It’s not - I wouldn’t be -“ Derek starts, looking more than a little flustered. It would be cute if Stiles didn’t have so many complicated feelings about the guy. 

“It’s cool, dude. I would harsh the vibe anyway.” God he sounds like a stoner. Extremely not cool. 

“No you wouldn’t -“ Derek starts to say. 

“Drop it,” Stiles says shortly, and to his surprise Derek does. 

Derek looks a little surprised too. 

“Give me your phone number. We can do check-in texts or something daily so you know I’m not kidnapped.” 

Derek nods mutely and reaches out a hand for Stiles’ phone. Stiles unlocks it and hands it over, Derek’s touch lingering for a few heartbeats. Stiles snaps a picture of Derek’s face for his contact, and to his surprise, the alpha is almost… blushing? The tips of his ears are a little pinker than usual, maybe that’s a blush or maybe Derek is developing rosacea. Werewolf rosacea. 

Stiles nods, embarrassed by how aroused he must seem to Derek to make the man blush like that. Next thing he knows Derek will be laughing at him or belittling his dick or something. Stiles doesn’t have the emotional capacity to handle that right now. 

Still, he smiles a little bit when Derek texts him back when he gets home, not even a minute after he sent his own text assuring Derek he didn’t die in traffic. As if Derek were waiting for him. He’s not Derek’s emissary, so maybe those protective feelings weren’t entirely faked. Or maybe Peter was wrong about Stiles not being Derek’s emissary. His chest is a whirlwind of painful emotions, and he wishes it would calm down and settle onto one painful thing instead. 

Stiles is so fucked.


	9. The Confrontation

The phone doesn’t even ring twice before Herod picks up. Even though it’s mid afternoon in California, it must be pre-dawn where Herod is. “Mietek? Are you okay? Did something happen?” He asks, his voice full of concern. It makes Stiles feel a little safer, knowing that someone cares.

“Yeah - I mean, not yet, but - I overheard… I mean, I just want to know if it’s _possible_...”

Herod waits patiently, making soft humming noises down the line that calm Stiles.

“I just - we were going to negotiate with the alpha pack,” Stiles begins, speaking quickly because he _knows_ his uncle is going to have some thoughts about that, “and then I had to talk to Derek - Hale - so I went to his apartment and I heard him talking to his uncle…”

“That’s a lot to take in, bud. I thought - wasn’t Peter Hale dead? Isn’t that how the Hale boy became an alpha?”

“Well - I mean, yeah, but he came back. It’s a whole thing, not entirely relevant right now. I just - he was talking to Derek, trying to… trying to convince him to like, seduce me? And then kill me? I think?” Stiles can hear his voice rising higher with each question, but can’t stop himself.

Herod makes soft shushing sounds. “You were really brave, Mietek. Claudia would have been so proud of you.”

Stiles sniffles a little bit, overtaken by emotion and the cold ruthlessness he heard in Peter’s voice. “I’m just - I don’t know what to do. I talked to Derek after and he asked me to join his pack. I know it’d be safer, but I don’t think I’d feel safe with Peter around…”

“I’m coming,” Herod says immediately, voice firm. “Don’t do anything until I get there. You’re in way over your head.”

“Oh - okay. If you think -“

“I do.” Stiles can hear a slight rustling sound, like Herod has shifted his phone against his ear, and then tapping on a keyboard. “The soonest I can get there is tomorrow evening. Will you be okay until then?”

“Yeah. Yeah I’ll be okay. Thank you, uncle Herry,” Stiles says a little breathlessly, desperate to finally have an adult he can actually rely on who wants to take care of him.

He sleeps soundly that night, curled up in his bed and dreaming idly about a school year in which he isn’t surrounded by murder.

* * *

Stiles wakes up in the pre-dawn morning to wolf howls outside his window and there is a long, drawn out moment where he considers just going back to bed.

Of course, because he is the way that he is, Stiles puts on his sneakers and grabs his baseball bat as he slips out the door, ready to shout down whatever werewolf stupidity has brought itself to _his house_ , where his _dad_ lives. He doesn’t know a lot about werewolf etiquette, but he is intimately familiar with Stiles Etiquette, and you don’t threaten the people he cares about unless you want to die.

Stiles may have worked with Scott on the treaty stuff, but his goodwill can only extend so far.

He realizes stupidly after he gets outside and sees four alphas staring him down that he forgot to bring his bag of sawdust and herbs. Shit.

One of them, the woman, is on him in a flash, knocking him to the ground, only his bat between her claws and his throat.

Stiles gasps for a moment before his brain kicks back into gear and he enters his trance. Not because he thinks it will make him fight better, this isn’t the matrix, but because it feels almost like instinct now, when he feels the grain of wood under his fingers.

The weight of the alpha on top of him becomes lighter, and Stiles can hear a snarling sound very, very close by. Then she is flying away like she was thrown by a sudden wind. Or an alpha. A Derek shaped alpha. Who is standing right over him.

“You come here often?” Stiles asks, his trance removing any hope in the world of his brain to mouth filter kicking in. “Ignore that, I’ll save unwanted come ons until after the fighting is over.”

Derek just stares at him, expression so painfully neutral that Stiles immediately takes it for second-hand embarrassment. He still grabs Stiles by the shoulder and hauls him up before running back into the fray.

It’s not particularly fair, as these things go. Normally, nine against four would be good odds, but when those four are stronger than even the strongest of the nine, victory looks like a stretch.

At one point the two twins, who Stiles had previously thought were some kind of weird Naruto shadow jutsu werewolf-magic copies of each other - which is not a weird thing to think at all - fuse together, throwing off Cora, Boyd, and Erica who had been clinging to them.

Somehow the fusion, notably more DBZ than Naruto, is more over the top than anything Stiles has seen before. He’d think he was hallucinating this whole fight, but he can still feel where the gravel has dug into this back from the alpha landing on him.

The girl alpha keeps circling back to try to fuck with Stiles, which he is deeply resentful for right now. He takes a swing with his bat and she falls back, before Derek stands between the two of them, growling low at the alpha.

She speaks loud enough for Stiles to hear, though it’s directed at Derek, “fattening him up for the slaughter, are you? Making him feel special so you can suck him dry for power? I did the same once. It felt amazing, when I drank deep of that love for me. You might even find that you won’t miss him when he’s gone.” She almost sounds bitter when she says it, but Derek doesn’t stop to ask why. His fingers wrap around her throat -

And slam her into the ground, a sickening crunch echoing across Stiles’ front lawn. “Don’t,” Derek pants. “You. Dare.”

Stiles rushes forward, bat raised high over his head to finish her off, but he’s caught off guard by something he sees in the corner of his eye. Ennis has stalked into the street from the shadows of the woods, claws out.

Stiles almost drops his bat in surprise.

Ennis grabs the weird twin amalgam, currently holding a beta in each hand, and holds his claws over their combined nose. Shared nose? The monstrous wolf-man sags, and Ennis drags him into the woods.

None of the other alphas seem to have noticed. The blind guy is standing menacingly near Chris Argent, which, hey, when did he get here? Who has his gun pointed right on him. Allison - oh god Scott is going to need some real bro-time after this - is also there, maybe as backup? And it looks like they’re talking to each other, probably in a super macho cool guy way that gives off DILF vibes or something.

Stiles gets the feeling that DILF vibes are a thing you have to work to cultivate; there’s no way Chris Argent is naturally that hot and dadly. He has to stop this line of thinking immediately or he’ll have to wonder if his own dad has DILF vibes and that is a dangerous road for his brain to take.

Instead he focuses on the alpha and Derek, talking to each other right in front of him.

“Uh, lady, your dead bald friend just showed up and kidnapped the wonder twins? Is that part of your evil alpha plan or are they about to get killed too?”

She snarls under Derek, but he roars at her in response. Which. Wow, kind of overkill, though it might have given Stiles a boner.

“I’m just saying, it seems like maybe you should investigate that before you lose the only other contingent of your pack that isn’t a creepy blind guy. Just a thought.” He shrugs and pulls Derek off her, amazed when the alpha complies easily.

He can see Ms. Foot Model- seriously what is up with her toes, that’s disgusting - looking around the battlefield née lawn and sniffing for her little comrade, and her face twists with desperate horror when they’re gone.

“You did this!” She says, pointing at Stiles. From the ground. Derek is already standing between them but he still tries to push Stiles back.

“Listen, you athlete’s foot having bitch, I’ve put up with a lot of stupidity from your little wolfy gang, but it is four in the goddamn morning.” He edges around Derek to get a little closer to her. “You can hear my heartbeat when I say, ‘I didn’t have anything to do with kidnapping or killing your friends’ and know I’m not lying, but if you thought for even one _millisecond_ about anything you would have realized that Scott didn’t either, since, you know, he’s still not an alpha. I’m not expecting much from you after all the shit you’ve pulled, but the very least you can do is call off your Zatoichi and get the _fuck_ off of my lawn.”

The alpha and Derek are both staring at him, chests heaving slightly, and the alpha just nods minutely before scrambling up and running off. Derek continues to stare at Stiles, as if there is nothing else in the world, and it’s making him feel a little bit self-conscious.

He looks for the other members of the pack rather than have to confront the feelings Derek’s look is inspiring in his chest. The betas are in varying states of bloody and bruised, but nothing he can’t fix with some choice clippings from the garden in the back.

The blind alpha, along with Chris Argent, are gone. Allison is lingering by Scott, looking like she wants to say something but not sure how. Stiles rolls his eyes and drops the baseball bat, jogging over to Allison while tugging off his shirt.

Scott is bleeding from multiple long gashes, and Stiles shoves the shirt in her hands. “Rip it up and bandage his wounds. I’ll come back and look at him again after I’m done with everyone else.”

He’s thankful that the rest of the pack are licking their wounds and/or in need of his herbal assistance, because all of the extremely fit werewolves and hottest people in school giving him disparaging looks for his frankly disappointing body would make Stiles cry.

It’s bad enough when he goes over to Derek and the alpha is still staring at him. “You need some help?” Stiles asks, hoping the answer is no. Derek’s shirt got ripped up in the fight, and any kind of medical assistance would require Stiles to touch. Derek’s very pretty muscles. Much prettier than his own. “We’ve got a whole herbal pharmacy here, enough to put GNC to shame.”

To his extreme frustration, Derek silently nods, and then Stiles has to smear his wounds with apple flowers and cinnamon bark from the pantry. Derek grits his teeth, but he doesn’t complain. And he doesn’t stop looking at Stiles either, until Stiles can’t take it anymore and says, “are you good? Did she break you or something?”

Derek looks away quickly, but Stiles can see his ears pink again. He’s waiting to see if Derek will awkwardly try to explain what he and Peter had been talking about last night, or keep it secret and add to the pile of ‘Derek’s a serial murderer’ evidence Stiles has been ignoring, but they are interrupted by Stiles’ dad. Who is standing in the door. Watching Stiles rub flowers into Derek Hale’s back. While a bunch of other wounded werewolves hang out on their lawn, covered in blood.

“Uh,” Stiles begins, trying and failing to find some lie that will explain away the mess around him. “Uh.”

Derek barely stops looking at Stiles to glance at his dad, but then the alpha is ten feet away in an instant, like Stiles has some kind of anti-werewolf plague. Or syphilis.

“Does this have to do with the werewolves your uncle called me to tell me about?” Stiles’ dad asks, shocking everyone on the lawn into silence.

“Okay, fun times, good job fending off the evil alphas everyone,” Stiles says. “In the spirit of good will I’m not going to question how you got here so quickly, but in return you all need to leave and give us some Stilinski time.”

Derek stalks back to Stiles and drags his fingers over Stiles’ wrist, bizarrely intimate and filling Stiles’ skin with heat, before he leads the pack away. Dawn is breaking above them, and if Stiles were going to school today, he can just imagine Ms. Blake asking everyone ‘what metaphoric significance do you think the dawn contains?’

When he turns back to his dad in the doorway, however, his face is more stormy than joyful. “Inside. Now.”

* * *

“So,” Stiles says, trying to sound chipper for his dad and not like he’s awake way too early, “I’m sure you have a lot of questions.”

“You bet your ass I do: how long have you been involved with this?” His dad asks, gesturing over Stiles’ shoulder where he sits at their kitchen table and towards the front lawn.

“Uh, a year or so? Scott was bitten by a -“ Stiles tries to translate everything with Peter into something his dad will understand. “By that serial killer we thought was Derek for a bit, and I found out then. Helped Scott handle everything.”

“Is the - are they still around? The serial killer?”

“Uh,” Stiles says thickly. “It’s complicated. We killed him for a while, but he mind controlled Lydia into helping him come back.”

“So he’s alive? In beacon hills?” His dad asks, hand moving to his hip despite the lack of a holster currently there.

“Yeah, but for right now we’ve got bigger wolves to… fry? Grill? Whatever, we’ve got bigger problems.”

“You and…” his dad pauses, like he’s steeling himself for an answer he doesn’t want to hear. “Derek?”

What. “What.”

“You know,” he says, wiggling his finger between Stiles and the lawn, which must represent every monstrous thing in the world to his dad.

“No, I really don’t know. Are you trying to imply that me and Derek are together?” The thought is almost laughably hilarious, even if Derek had been almost gentle with Stiles before he left.

“You tell me,” his dad says, crossing his arms.

“We aren’t. We are definitively not together. There has never been a me and Derek. There probably never will be, but I only say ‘probably’ because the future is an ever shifting mystery.” He catches his breath, his dad’s eyebrows up to his hairline.

“Do you want to be?”

“Dad,” Stiles says. “You just found out about werewolves. You just found out your _only son_ has been dealing with werewolf problems for the past year. Could you maybe lay off the Derek shaped problems and focus a little bit more on the, you know, life threatening ones?”

His dad raises his eyebrows. “You two seemed pretty touchy feely. The last time you mentioned him, you thought he was a murderer. Maybe he _is_ a life threatening problem.”

“That’s - oh my god, pops, you’re horrible at this. You should be asking me about the people who tried to attack me on our lawn - which Derek saved me from, thank you! - or what’s going on with Scott or whatever, not about my frankly unfairly boring romantic life. Like, hey, I can do magic now! That’s the kind of stuff you should be asking. Not,” he breaks off. “Not, you know. Not about Derek.”

Stiles’ dad puts his hand on Stiles’ shoulder, looking like he wants to pull his son into a hug but for the caked on layer of masculinity both are clinging to. Stiles wishes he was brave enough to pull his dad in to hug him; he kind of needs a hug right now.

“I don’t - I didn’t mean it. At the club last year. If you’re - if you’re gay, that’s okay with me kiddo. I’ll love you regardless.”

“I’m not - I think the term is bisexual? So you weren’t wrong, I’m not really ‘gay’ per se.”

Stiles’ dad rolls his eyes fondly. “You know what I mean. If you were - I mean, frankly, you could do better than Derek Hale - but if you were together, that wouldn’t be a problem.”

Stiles is overtaken by the urge to defend Derek - he’s funny sometimes, he’s very attractive, but he’s also never hesitated to defend Stiles. Stiles isn’t sure that they’d actually be good together - he barely knows the guy - but he could do a _lot_ worse than him. Not that Derek would be interested in _him_ in a million years, but. If he were.

Stiles has to get this stupid conversation back on track with no help from his dad, so instead he explains the various and sundry life-threatening situations he’s been in over the past year, mostly glossing over the life threatening parts as best he can.

When he’s done, his dad’s gaze is a little glazed over, and Stiles can respect that. A lot has happened over the last year, which is no doubt overwhelming to process for someone who only just found out about werewolves.

“Magic, huh?” He finally asks, sounding inordinately proud.

Stiles rushes to temper his expectations. “It’s not like, flashy or anything. Like, it’s good to be useful, but I’m not throwing fireballs or cracking the world in half. I’m more like a protector, I guess? For and against the supernatural. Like an advisor.”

His dad’s eyes are no less shining than they were before. “Sounds like you take after your old man.”

Stiles blushes, scratching the back of his head. “I didn’t - you’re right. I didn’t think of it like that, but yeah. Kinda.”

“Listen. I’m not happy that you’ve been putting yourself in danger like this without being able to tell anyone about it,” his dad says, raising a hand to silence Stiles’ objections. “Not because you did a bad job, or because you shouldn’t help Scott, but it’s like I say to the deputies at the office - this kind of job leaves scars on you, kid. If you try to do it alone, without talking to anyone, it’ll eat away at you.” His voice grows unbearably gentle as he says, “I don’t want to see you go like that, Stiles.”

Stiles swallows, nods, and looks away. He’s felt that, even on top of having to lie to his dad - almost dying and coming home and feeling so, so alone. He had Scott to talk to, for a while, but it wasn’t the same. Scott was in it just as much as Stiles was. Stiles couldn’t exactly complain about his headaches after Erica knocked him out when Scott was almost failing all of his classes.

The few months when he could talk to Ms. Morrell were good for him, but even then he couldn’t really tell her anything.

When his dad grips the back of his neck and pulls him in, Stiles sags against him, breathes for a few moments, and then full-body sobs. It’s the kind of crying that’s built up for so long and so slowly that he can’t process why it’s happening, just ride it out until his tears peter off and his breathing evens out.

“I’m - I’m always going to be here for you kid. Please don’t lie to me anymore. Please don’t keep me out.” He can hear how much this has affected his dad, having to see him lie again and again. Feeling like he doesn’t understand his son, like his kid is drifting away to a place he can’t go.

“I won’t. I won’t, I promise. I just - I wanted to protect you.”

“I’m your dad, Stiles, I should protect you.”

Stiles lets out a shaky laugh. “Please, we’ve never been good at normal father-son relations. We can protect each other.”

His dad nods into his hair. “Yeah. We can - we can protect each other.”

* * *

Stiles is sitting in his computer chair with his feet up on his desk when Derek opens his window that afternoon. Stiles is expecting something like their previous interactions, Derek climbing through and pressing him up against a wall. He’s maybe looking forward to it a little.

But Derek just stands there on the other side of the window. He clears his throat after a few moments, even though Stiles isn’t talking and has been staring at him.

“Are you -“ Stiles begins to ask, but Derek steamrolls over him with,

“If you or your father don’t want me around, I understand. I just wanted to - to explain, about what Kali was saying.”

Stiles wracks his brain, trying to think of who Kali is.

“I don’t - I wasn’t trying to make you fall in love with me so I could kill you,” Derek says. “I wanted to make sure you didn’t - that’s why I made the pack stop talking to you, when we found out the alpha pack had come. So you wouldn’t be in danger.”

Stiles stares at him.

Derek seems to realize that he hasn’t explained a crucial piece of this whole thing and backs up his story. “Emissaries and alphas tend to be connected. If an emissary and an alpha fall in love, the emissary can give their power to the alpha - or vice-versa - and it makes them much stronger. Sometimes, alphas will…” Derek makes a face, like he find the thought of even saying the words distasteful, “murder, their emissaries, to take the power. That’s what - that’s what Kali was talking about.”

“Sure,” Stiles says, “a sacrifice. It’s the only way to control magic like that. I figured that’s basically how the alpha pack was getting their power - they kill their pack as a sacrifice and absorb the magic of the pack bond to grow stronger.”

Derek stares at Stiles.

“I actually heard you and Peter talking about it last night. God, was that last night, it feels like three hundred million years ago.”

Derek seems deeply relieved that Stiles isn’t freaking out. “Don’t remember seeing that many dinosaurs.”

“Ha ha, very funny, wise guy. You know I’m right. Anyway, you and Peter were talking about it. You said you weren’t going to, so I figured I was safe. Sorry for, uh, not mentioning it, but you said I should join your pack and I got kind of distracted.” Stiles pauses for a second. “Though, you know, it would be much more effective if the emissary willingly gave their life for their alpha than having it forcibly taken. Unwilling sacrifice dilutes the power a _lot_.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Derek says, rolling his eyes. He doesn’t look like he’s about to take a swan dive off of the roof if Stiles makes the wrong move, but it’s only a month after summer and the bugs are getting in.

“Come inside already, dude, you look like you’re about to take my order at a drive-thru right now.”

Derek hesitates, looking behind him and then at Stiles.

“I’m not gonna bite, you big baby, come on so we can talk about what to do with whoever is killing the alpha pack.”

Derek ducks down and climbs over the sill, absurdly graceful considering the context. His nostrils flare when he closes the window, but Stiles doesn’t want to start worrying about his man-stink, so he ignores it.

“If you put your shoes on my bed, I’ll hit you with a rolled up newspaper,” Stiles says as he goes back to poring over his druid research notes.

Derek huffs. “Surprised you don’t have a spray bottle with ‘bad doggy’ on it already.”

Stiles cackles, grinning up at Derek. “That’s such a good idea, dude, I’ll bring it to pack meetings to shush your kids with.”

Derek tries to feign indifference as he stretches out on Stiles’ bed, but Stiles can see the smile itching at the corner of his mouth when Stiles talks about going to pack meetings. “I won’t make you stop if you don’t tell them I gave you the idea.”

“Deal,” Stiles says, copy and pasting a relevant section into his ‘evil sacrifice’ document. “So. The alphas.”

Derek has stuffed his face against Stiles’ pillow when Stiles turns around to look. He quickly looks up, a little sheepish.

“It’s cool if you want more Eu de Stilinski, dude, as long as you’re listening to what I have to say.”

Derek reluctantly settles back down on Stiles’ pillow, looking a little guilty. Stiles isn’t really sure why; he and Scott have regular pillow exchanges, recently smuggled through the night when they couldn’t hang out directly. He figures it’s a pretty normal werewolf thing.

“I think the killer may be sacrificing the alphas for power. The stump where the first killing happened is a nemeton. They’re important magical sites of power, like a locus. Uh, if that’s a word you know. So, them killing Ennis at the treaty get-together was probably intentional - we might have played into their hands by doing it there. Scott mentioned a silver knife when Ennis died.

“The problem with these kinds of sacrifices, any kind of sacrifice really, is that the magic is fickle. It doesn’t want to be controlled like that, housed and caged. If you know what you’re doing, it’s not hard to transfer that kind of power with a sacrifice of your own. Sometimes you can even make it stick, but that’s much harder. I’d bet that the killer is looking to take on the power of the alpha pack for themselves.”

Derek grunts from Stiles’ pillows.

“The thing is, like I said, unwilling sacrifices dilute the power, otherwise you’d see supernatural sacrifices all over the place, right? And unwilling sacrifices means unwilling power. This person has to be either really stupid, or unconcerned about their own well-being. If they keep this up, even if they do manage to contain the power, they’ll probably die as it rips apart their body.”

Derek shifts a bit on the bed, making a ‘continue’ motion with his hand to Stiles.

“They know enough to go after the alpha pack, so it doesn’t make sense to me that they wouldn’t know the consequences. Even the least reputable magic sources talk about how dangerous unwilling sacrifice can be. Plus, they have to know _some_ magic just to be able to gain the power in the first place. So, I’m guessing this person has a personal vendetta against the alphas, if they’re willing to go after them despite the cost. This is a suicide mission for them.”

Derek looks up at Stiles. “How do we stop them?”

“Delay the ritual. They’ll burn up if they go too long between sacrifices, so if we can stall them or keep them away from the last two victims, they should die.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “Like that’s so easy when the alpha pack wants to kill us.”

“They’re not stupid. They’ve probably realized their mistake at this point, they’re just laying low in case you’re holding a grudge, or if the killer follows you to them.”

“So, find the alphas and we’ll find the killer,” Derek summarizes.

“More or less, yeah.”

Stiles fidgets for a few moments, knowing Derek doesn’t have any reason to hang out with him now that he’s shared his information but wanting him to anyway.

“You wanna watch a movie?” Stiles asks, feeling a little stupid for asking so soon after finishing his explanation. “Not that you have to or anything, if you want to go start searching right away that’s fine, I get it -“

“I texted Scott and asked him to wrangle the ‘kids’,” Derek finger quotes. “They’ll let me know if they find anything. I was planning on staying nearby in case someone comes back to hurt you.”

Stiles waggles his eyebrows. “So, what I’m hearing is that you can’t say no if I say I want to watch Shrek?”

Derek raises his hackles, which really means he smiles but more threateningly. “Really? What are you, twelve?” He immediately flinches after saying it, which Stiles doesn’t really understand. He’s not ashamed of his age, especially now that he’s eighteen and can vote and smoke. In that order.

“Uh, no dude, Shrek is a timeless classic. I swear to god, you’ll be converted by the end of it, it’s so good.”

Stiles is right, but Derek refuses to admit it. Stiles catches him humming along to a couple of the songs anyway, and smiling at the end when Shrek and Fiona get together.

Stiles has seen the movie some dozen times - seriously, classic - and so he spends the movie sitting next to Derek on his bed looking out of the corner of his eye at Derek, at every minute expression and eye roll, listening to every sigh and laugh and little snarky comment under his breath.

Especially when Derek falls asleep part way through Shrek 2.

Derek is, somehow, even more breathtaking like this. Angry Derek is hot, but he doesn’t hold a candle to relaxed, comfortable Derek. Stiles wants to pet his hair and make him dinner and treat him well. A little bit in a sexual way, because Stiles can’t help the way that he is, but mostly in a ‘I can’t get enough of seeing you smile’ kind of way.

He’s completely fucked. This is exactly the kind of shit he feels around Lydia, the buying five presents kind of over the top shit that only ends up pushing people away because it’s frankly overbearing, Stiles.

He doesn’t stop the feelings welling up in his chest, though, so long as they don’t overflow and threaten to break the fragile moment between the two of them. Stiles wonders when Derek has let himself be unguarded like this before. Is he like this at the pack meetings? When he’s playing with his betas?

Derek blinks awake while Stiles is watching him. Stiles freezes, expecting Derek to growl or claw him or something, but Derek just smiles softly.

Stiles can’t help himself from leaning down and kissing Derek. For a moment, Derek is rising up to meet him, warm lips on Stiles’ own, but then he freezes and falls back onto the bed. Derek’s face looks stricken.

“Fuck, fuck, sorry, I’m so sorry, I should have asked before I did that,” Stiles says, but Derek sighs and shakes his head.

“We shouldn’t. You’re not - you’re too young.”

Stiles has no idea what Derek is talking about. “Uh, you’re older than me I guess, but only by like 5 years.”

“No, I mean - you’re still underage.”

“No I’m not?” Stiles says, utterly confused. “I’m eighteen. I got held back in third grade when my mom was… when she was in the hospital. I refused to go to school and missed months of classes.”

Derek looks shocked. “I had no idea. What happened to her?”

“She died,” Stiles shrugs. “I miss her still, but… it’s been ten years. I don’t know, it doesn’t feel like such a weight on my chest anymore.”

Derek nods. “Yeah, I - yeah.”

“You don’t have to explain, dude, I get it,” Stiles says gently. “But, uh, if the age thing was the problem, can we maybe kiss some more? I’ve thought about it a lot.” He doesn’t think before saying that last part, but then it’s out and Derek is looking at him with wide eyes again.

“Me too,” Derek says simply, bringing his hand up to the back of Stiles’ head and pulling him down.

Derek almost purs against Stiles’ lips before licking in. He stops there, though, as if waiting for Stiles. When Stiles tentatively pushes his tongue past Derek’s lips, Derek straight up moans and bucks his hips.

Stiles hasn’t kissed a lot before, definitely not with this much tongue, but he has decided that kissing Derek is great. Kissing Derek is so good - Derek’s hand on Stiles’ head, threading his fingers through Stiles’ hair, Derek’s hips under him, the warmth of their stomachs where they touch, the soft warmth of Derek’s mouth; it’s great.

Stiles’ pants are getting a little uncomfortable, though. He grabs his sweatpants and starts to pull them down, hoping to get a little bit more breathing room for his dick, but Derek grabs him by the wrist and stops him.

“I don’t - let’s wait. I want to do this right.” Derek sounds uncharacteristically vulnerable when he says it, like he’s waiting for Stiles to say the wrong answer. It makes Stiles hesitate for a moment, trying to think of the right thing to say.

“Yeah, whenever you’re ready. We can go as slow as you need.”

Derek kisses him intensely then and it feels like he’s thanking Stiles.

Stiles lets his hands explore instead, knowing he needs to give them something to do if he wants to keep them off his dick. He feels around Derek’s body, touching everywhere, trying to remember the feeling of it under him. He’s honestly not sure if this isn’t just a surreally vivid dream, and he’s been having a lot of dreams recently along these lines.

Dream or not, Stiles doesn’t know if this will last, if Derek will ever want to do this again - how many times have people realized that Stiles is too much for them and ghosted him? Far too many - so he takes his time to feel, to glide his fingers around Derek’s nipples, to find out what makes him feel good.

If he’s only going to have memories of this, at least they’ll be accurate.

He pushes his hands up the back of Derek’s shirt and Derek sighs into Stiles’ neck, kissing and biting and rubbing his nose all over. It feels a little weird, not quite as nice as the making out, but Stiles can feel against his hip how good it’s making Derek feel.

Derek pulls back from Stiles’ neck and looks at him, a little vulnerable again. “Can you -“ he points to his own neck, and Stiles nods.

When he’s the one doing it, he can understand why Derek enjoys it. There’s something really good about marking and biting, the vulnerability of the neck, the way Derek moans his name when he rubs his nose into Derek’s skin.

They must make out for hours, because it’s mid afternoon when they tire themselves out and curl up to take a nap. Stiles honestly hadn’t expected that Derek would let him be the big spoon, but he’s really not complaining when Derek pulls Stiles’ arms around his waist and settles his back into Stiles’ front.

Stiles falls asleep soon after Derek, feeling the sure and steady beat of Derek’s heart where Stiles’s fingers are wrapped around his wrist.

He wakes sometime later to a loud knocking from the door downstairs. Stiles is so caught up in his feelings that he doesn’t even stop to think about who it would be. He simply goes downstairs, still thinking about the soft look on Derek’s face as he slept, and opens the door.

Herod barrels past him, gun in hand. “Anyone else in the house?”

Stiles stares. He completely forgot he called to ask Herod to come. He can feel panic start to build in his chest. “Uncle Herry, I know I was kind of distraught when I called you, but things are a lot better now. Me and Derek talked about stuff, he’s not going to eat me or anything, I promise.”

Derek takes that unfortunate moment to appear on the stairs, looking adorably tousled and grumpy to have been woken up. “Who is this -“ he starts to ask, but he’s cut off by the loud bang of a gunshot.

Stiles sees the blood blooming on Derek’s shoulder, the little lines of black tracing up his neck, feels the surprised look on Derek’s face mirrored in his own, barely catches the smell of blood in the air and hears the soft thud of Derek collapsing against the wall before Herod has grabbed him around the waist and carried him out into the back seat of his car.

“I knew this was going to happen, I should have gone for that earlier flight,” Herod mutters to himself, as he adjusts the mirror and drives off.

Stiles is so shocked by the sudden violence, it’s not until the car starts moving that he tries to open the door, only to realize that it’s the kind of police car that doesn’t have handles on the back doors.

“What the fuck! Let me out, what is wrong with you?” Stiles shouts, reaching to the front seat trying to hit or grab at whatever he can reach. “You could have killed him! Let me out!” Stiles is practically crying now.

Herod doesn’t even seem to notice Stiles’ fists, just calmly drives on. “You’ll thank me, Mietek, when we’re out of this. You don’t want to hang around that crowd.”

“Fuck you!” Stiles shouts. “Let me go!” He starts pounding on the back windows, hoping a passerby will notice.

The gaze Herod gives him is filled with pity. “So far gone, baby boy. He’s truly sunk his claws in you.”

Stiles can feel the exhaustion hanging heavy on his shoulders, draining all the fight from him. “I’ll sink my claws in your ass after I get out of here. I can’t believe I trusted you, I thought you would help and not just fucking kill an innocent man.”

“Please, Mietek. No one, least of all a werewolf, is really innocent. What color were his eyes, before he became alpha? You knew him then, right?”

Stiles can’t quite resolve the man in front of him, the one who looks so much like him, his beloved uncle, with the man who just shot his crush, so he doesn’t hesitate when he says, “blue.”

Herod nods. “There were rumors about the Hale kid getting some girl killed. A werewolf’s eyes turn blue when they hurt someone they love, and werewolves rarely leave victims alive. That’s the kind of person you’re dealing with, Mietek.”

“Who cares. I’ve killed someone,” Stiles says, though really he only helped to kill Peter. And he did hit Jackson with his car and kill him, if that counts. Herod must be able to hear the hesitation in his voice.

“It’s not the same and you know it. Don’t try to argue with me on this, kid, let your uncle take care of you.”

Stiles feels himself fall into panic, his breaths so erratic that his chest feels like someone is stabbing it. Herry doesn’t even react, just keeps driving, and no matter what Stiles does, it doesn’t get better.

After what feels like an eternity, Stiles passes out of consciousness, though he fights desperately to stay awake, to figure out a way to escape and save Derek.


	10. The Escape

When he wakes, Stiles is laying on a bed in a nondescript room, no phone in sight. His eyes alight on a chair next to his bed, where Herod is sitting and smiling lightly to him, as if he didn’t kidnap Stiles and bring him here against his will.

“Hey there little sword,” he says softly. “Feeling better?”

“Don’t - don’t call me that,” Stiles rasps out. “You’re not her. You don’t get to pretend to be.”

Herod makes a frustrated face at that. “I’m the closest thing you’ve still got to her. You may be mad now, but you’ll come to forgive me in time.”

“No I fucking won’t,” Stiles says, trying to sit up. He needs to know how long it’s been, how much time Derek has left, but he can’t help how mad Herod makes him. “I trusted you and you broke that trust. I’m never going to make that mistake again.”

Herod shakes his head. “You will. You can’t deny your family, kid, never could. Don’t you want to know more about her? About our family?”

“No,” Stiles says vehemently, and it doesn’t feel like a lie. “I know everything I need to about her, about who she was after she left you behind. I don’t need you and I don’t want you around me.”

Herod looks like Stiles has struck him across the face, but he carefully schools himself. “Watch your tongue, Mieczysław. You don’t know what I did for her, for you.”

“You pushed her away. She was so afraid of you she wouldn’t even write about it in her diary, just that she was relieved to be gone.” Stiles doesn’t actually know if she was afraid, but it feels like a safe enough guess.

“I did what I had to!” Herod shouts at Stiles, face a little red from his anger. “So what if Claudia didn’t understand, I protected her from it, we protected her.”

“Grandpa Mietek was the only reason she stayed. She must have hated you, the way she ran away once he died.”

Stiles probably should have seen it coming, that he couldn’t get away with saying something like that without repercussion, but the strength his uncle puts behind his hand as he slaps Stiles across the face almost throws him from the bed.

“Watch yourself, boy,” Herod says. “I’ve done things you cannot even imagine for this family, and even if you are all I have left of her, my kindness has limits.”

Stiles takes a moment before he can speak again. “You don’t have anything left of her. Whatever you are, you’re nothing like her, and you’ll never have me. I should have known better than to contact you - she left for a reason.”

Herod stands up from his chair and begins pacing the room, looking more and more agitated.

“You keep calling me Mietek,” Stiles continues. “But that’s not my name. That was _his_ name. I’ll never be like grandpa, no matter how many times you pretend.”

“You aren’t half the man he was,” Herod sneers. “My father built our family into what it was, a powerhouse. We brokered information for every major Hunter and Werewolf family in the US and Europe.” He smiles cruelly at Stiles’ surprise. “That’s right, you wouldn’t have heard that, if you ran with wolves. My father was cunning, unwilling to simply sell plants to Emissaries and Hunters - he sold information to the highest bidder - whether a Hunting family was coming after a pack, or where a specific Emissary was buying their supplies from.”

Stiles feels bile fill his throat. The idea of selling protection to innocent families who don’t want to die - and then turning around and sending in the Hunters who can pay enough - is disgusting.

“Claudia didn’t even know. He kept her away from that, his precious little girl. Didn’t stop her from being an invaluable asset: she bred most of the strains of wolf’s bane currently on the market. I bet she didn’t tell you that, did she? Werewolves pay just as much as Hunters, when push comes to shove.”

Herod pushes in closer, grabbing Stiles by the arm and dragging him up.

“She wasn’t innocent. None of us were. Just because you’ve found yourself some werewolf who’ll fuck you and tell you he loves you doesn’t mean you’re better than me, _little sword_.”

“No. The fact that I don’t sell people’s lives and safety to murderers makes me better than you,” Stiles says, his voice cold as ice.

Herod looks tempted to hit Stiles again, but instead clenches his fists and breathes in long through his nose. He opens his eyes, looks at Stiles sadly, shakes his head, and then walks out. Stiles can hear the click of the lock sliding into place.

He wants to lie down and fall asleep, dream about better days, his mom’s hand in his hair, her sweet voice whispering ‘my little sword,’ into his ear -

But then he thinks about Derek. Imagines Derek bleeding out on Stiles’ staircase, alone once more, and it takes nothing but that image for Stiles to climb up from his bed and start picking apart the room.

Herod stripped it clean of anything even mildly useful, which Stiles basically expected, but once again he is learning to appreciate the element of surprise. Deaton telling him about how important keeping his magic secret is coming back to him in this moment, when he gets his hands on some lemon Pledge from under the bed.

The lemon in it is almost nonexistent, but Stiles will work with what he’s got. He pulls off his shirt and soaks one corner in the cleaner, entering his trance and kneeling down at the bottom hinge.

It takes him far longer than he’s proud of - nearly an hour and a half - but he rubs and rubs until he can feel the door move slightly, the hinge giving way. He moves to the top hinge and starts rubbing again, hope giving him a burst of energy that gets him through the second hinge much faster than the first, barely thirty minutes.

He manages to wrench the door off of its hinges and set it to the side with only a mild thud. Stiles winces and waits a few minutes to make sure Herod won’t come check on him, and then edges out of the room and down the hall.

The house is so nondescript that Stiles has to wonder if it’s ever been lived in. There aren’t even spots on the walls where picture frames might have once hung. He’s sure Herod must be somewhere nearby, but rather than confront him directly, Stiles heads to the kitchen.

Before he started messing around with herbs - which really makes him sound like a stoner - it would be hilarious to think he would go find the kitchen, but he needs supplies and he has to hope the kitchen has _some_.

Unfortunately for Stiles, the place is spotless. Not in the ‘extremely clean’ sense, though it is, but rather in that there isn’t a damn thing in the kitchen. Stiles rifles desperately through every drawer, finding nothing.

He needs to get the bullets in Herod’s gun if he wants to save Derek, though. Giving up, Stiles grabs the only thing he can wield as a makeshift weapon: the door he broke off of his room.

Stiles’ running with the hawthorn staves must have paid off, because he manages to pick up the door and carry it into Herod’s room without making a sound.

He can’t actually wield the door as easily as he needs to, so rather than trying to do anything fancy, he just raises it up over Herod’s sleeping form and slams it down as hard as he can.

As soon as he lets go, he starts removing the bullets from the gun on Herod’s bedside table, not wanting to wait and see if Herod is knocked out. Stiles doesn’t trust himself to actually fight his uncle if he isn’t knocked out.

When Stiles first started hanging around the sheriff’s office, after his mom died, his dad had showed him his gun and explained precisely how dangerous it was. He showed Stiles pictures of gunshot wounds. It was probably a precaution against his curious son playing with a firearm and hurting himself, but Stiles took it rather the other way. Stiles decided to learn everything he could about guns, in the hopes that maybe he could protect his dad from them.

It’s much harder to shield people from bullets than from cholesterol, though.

Still, he knows intimately how to disassemble this model of firearm, standard issue in police departments. Stiles has to wonder where his uncle got this gun and the car from. Is he part of some undercover supernatural law enforcement organization?

As soon as Stiles has popped the magazine out of the gun and pocketed it, he takes off running. He really doesn’t want to face Herod after hitting him with a door.

When he gets out of the house, Stiles is in a part of town he can’t recognize at all. He swivels his head around looking for anything familiar and doesn’t notice the duck sitting on the sidewalk in front of him until it quacks indignantly.

“Oh my god, you have no idea how happy I am to see you,” Stiles says, kneeling down to pet the duck on his cute little head. He squints his eyes happily at Stiles. “Okay little dude, can you take me to Derek? Or maybe a payphone?”

The duck starts waddling off at a brisk clip down the sidewalk. Stiles hopes he doesn’t look too absurd chasing after a duck in the middle of the night, but he can’t be bothered to care that much with Derek’s life on the line.

The duck brings him to a payphone before waddling in what is presumably the direction of home. Or whatever new unsuspecting victim he desires, Stiles has no idea what the duck’s deal is.

Stiles dials 911 with trembling fingers, waiting impatiently for the operator to get through her initial spiel before blurting out, “hey Tara, it’s Stiles, can you put me through to my dad? It’s actually an emergency this time, I promise.”

Tara must hear the desperate edge to his voice, because she only grumbles a little bit as she patches him through to his dad.

“Dad, uh, I need some help. With a, uh, wolfy friend of mine.”

“Stiles, I’m alone, you can talk normally,” his dad says, equal parts exasperated and concerned.

“Oh thank god. Okay, Herod showed up and shot Derek and then kidnapped me. I got away after I hit him with a door and got his bullets, but it was definitely wolf’s bane. Or like, it had wolf’s bane in it, whatever, it doesn’t matter, Derek is probably dying right now and the only way to save him is to bring him these stupid bullets so can you come pick me up?” Stiles says it all in one, torturously long breath, feeling panic edge into his lungs. “I’m really - I’m scared, dad. I don’t want him to die.”

“No one’s going to die, Stiles. Talk me through it, where was Derek last?” his dad asks calmly. Stiles can hear his keys jangling on the other end of the line.

“Uh he was in our house, on the stairs. Herod left him for dead, maybe he’s still there. Unless the alphas came to finish him off, oh god.”

“I thought you said they were more concerned about the person killing them.”

“I mean, yeah, probably? Who knows what the hell happens in their weird brains.”

Stiles keeps talking to his dad until he can hear the screeching of tires on pavement.

Stiles hops in the passenger side of the sheriff’s car. “I asked Parrish to check out the house, he said there was blood but no body. Do you have any idea where Hale could be?” His dad asks.

“Oh, shit, let me call Scott. He has some weird kind of bond with Derek, I don’t really get it.”

Scott picks up on the third ring. “Stiles, we’re a little bit busy right now.”

“Is Derek with you?”

“Yeah, but he’s really hurt.”

“I know. Where are you? I’ll meet you there.”

“The nemeton. We think the next sacrifice is going to happen tonight.”

Stiles swears.

* * *

When they pull up as close to the preserve as Stiles’s dad’s cruiser will go, Stiles gets out and starts running immediately, not bothering to see if his dad is following.

He fucked up calling Herod and it got Derek really hurt. He needs to fix this. He can’t let Derek die.

Also he wants to kiss him again.

So Stiles runs like he’s never run before, like he’s flying between each footfall; like the devil, or more likely some alpha werewolf, is nipping at his heels.

When he gets to the clearing, the tableau is his worst fear:

Ms. Blake, standing on the stump, Kali at her feet, a ring of mountain ash blocking the blind guy and Scott from stopping her, and Derek on his knees vomiting black blood.

Stiles ignores the standstill, the silence, and rushes over to Derek immediately, pushing him over onto his back so he can get to the wound.

Derek looks up at Stiles with unfocused eyes. “S-stiles? Is that you?” He sounds faint, no angry facade built up like when Stiles and Scott saved his arm. “I’m sorry -“

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, dummy,” Stiles chokes out, trying not to cry. He pulls a bullet out of his pocket and unscrews it to get the wolf’s bane out, but his hands are shaking so hard that he spills it all over himself.

Derek puts his hands on Stiles’, smiling slightly, and says, “I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad I got to see you…”

“Shut up, shut up,” Stiles says, feeling hot tears drip onto his fingers as he tries to open up another bullet. “You’re not going to die dumbass, shut up.”

“It’s okay. Maybe it’s better… this way…”

Stiles would slap Derek for saying that if his hands weren’t so full of wolf’s bane and gunpowder. Instead he searches Derek’s jacket and pockets for a lighter.

He’s never going to leave the house without a lighter again after this, he decides, but he finally finds one in Derek’s front pocket. He scrabbles to light it with one hand before gently setting flame to the powder in his hand. It burns, it hurts so bad, but Stiles doesn’t care. He doesn’t care because when he presses the powder into Derek’s shoulder, Derek gasps and arches his back.

He doesn’t care because he can see the black lines receding from Derek’s wound. He doesn’t care because he leans down and kisses Derek again, heart thrumming with adrenaline and affection in equal measure.

Derek gasps Stiles’ name against his lips and Stiles feels something settle in his stomach, some fear that he could not name before lest it become true. Stiles doesn’t care that he’s crying into Derek’s shoulder where he’s holding him tightly, Derek must have dozens of these stupid leather jackets, he can afford to replace one if it gets tearstained.

When Stiles comes down from the adrenaline high, he remembers that there was more to the situation than him and Derek. Thankfully, everyone seemed to have stopped to watch Stiles’ drama. Or, wait, that’s kind of embarrassing.

But when he and Scott make eye contact, Scott nods and turns back to Ms. Blake. “Julia. You don’t have to do this.”

Ms. Blake - Julia? Wasn’t her name Jennifer? - shakes her head. “You don’t get it, none of you get it.” She sounds slightly deranged. “She groomed me, made me think she loved me, made me love _her_ , but it was all a ploy. She used me. And you made her do it, didn’t you Deucalion,” she says pointing a finger at the blind guy.

Deucalion - really, Stiles should have learned these names a while ago - growls low under his breath, but he can’t do anything to stop her.

Stiles kind of gets the impulse to villainously monologue, now, seeing Ms. Blake like this. It’s not about hubris or stupidity - it’s about wanting to finally be understood by someone. To finally be heard.

He sees the desperation in her voice, in her face, and in the words she says. She seems lonely, almost; sad, maybe. Stiles gets it - she has a captive audience, now, somewhat literally, and she’s taking her moment in the sun. She’s letting herself be center stage.

Scott must see the same thing. His voice is gentle now, understanding. “What they did to you must have been awful. How did you survive?”

Ms. Blake - and, no, this really is Julia, almost a different person from Stiles’ English teacher - nods. “I dragged myself here, to the nexus of the leylines. There was power lingering here, in the roots, from an earlier sacrifice,” Stiles can feel Derek jerk in his arms, “and I used it to save myself. I gave up my life to her,” she says, wretchedly, “I gave her everything, and she slit my throat and left me for dead. I loved her, I loved her more than anything - more than the whole world. I would have done anything for her, but she never felt the same for me.”

Stiles doesn’t notice anything, but Julia and all of the werewolves jerk in surprise. After a second, Derek whispers, “Kali says she did feel the same. That she always loved her, that she was foolish to listen to Deucalion. That’s she’s sorry.”

Stiles remembers the way Kali had taunted Derek when they attacked Stiles’ house, the almost wistful way she said it, the regret.

But Julia shakes her head viciously. “You lied to me then, what’s to say you wouldn’t lie to me now. No, no more games. No more of this. You’ll die tonight, and then I’ll use your power to kill Deucalion. It’ll be poetic, don’t you think?” She asks, pulling Kali’s head up by her hair, exposing her throat.

Scott roars and pushes forward into the barrier. Deucalion and Derek both look at him like he’s crazy, but Stiles knows. Mountain ash is only as strong as the will of the person who set it - if they’re distracted, if you can overpower their will, you can break through.

Scott looks like he’s pushing through waist-high sand, like every millimeter is a mile, like he’s weighed down with concrete and stones in his feet.

But slowly. Slowly, he slinks forward, closer to the nemeton, Julia, and Kali. He roars again, pushes through with an enormous effort, and breaks the barrier at the exact moment that Julia slits Kali’s throat.

Two things happen at once: Scott grabs Julia by the shoulder and pulls her away, and Kali sprays her blood all over the stump.

But, if Stiles has learned anything about true magic, it’s that it loves two things: balance, and acts of genuine emotion. Sweeping gestures of love, expressions of pure hatred, and even a hand reaching out, trying to help someone in need.

Stiles has to guess that’s the explanation for what happens, because otherwise he’s stumped.

Simultaneously Julia collapses on the nemeton, Scott’s back arches, and Kali starts coughing. Scott lets out another roar, but this one is different. It calls to Stiles, offers him comfort and shelter. He feels it inside himself besides just the vibrations hitting his skin and teeth, echoing in his brain.

When he turns to Stiles, his eyes are red.


	11. The Reconciliation

“So,” Stiles begins, watching Julia and Kali carefully where they sit next to each other on the stump. “You’re chill now?”

Kali scoffs at him, but Julia simply nods. “We’re - we have a lot of things to talk about, but I’m not - I never stopped loving her.”

“Uh, you realize you’re still a murderer, right? Like you both super did murder people. Like, not to be all, raining on your mutual murder ‘now we’re back together’ parade or anything, but it’s not suddenly okay just because you love each other.”

Kali looks at Julia and nods, and Julia herself just looks at her hands. “You’re - yeah. Yeah, it wasn’t right to kill Ennis like that.”

“And the twins? And Kali tried to kill me. Plus, like, you know, the pack that Kali murdered. Again, not trying to rain on your parade, but I’m going to have to ask you not to leave.”

Kali sneers at him. “How are you planning on stopping us, boy?”

“I’m not, they are,” Stiles says, pointing to Derek and Scott where they stand behind him, eyeing each other like they’re not sure if the other one is going to bite. “I’m guessing you’re not an alpha anymore, but if you are, you still can’t take two alphas all on your own, and your blind friend ghosted you, so.”

Kali growls low in her throat, but Julia puts a hand on her arm. “You’re right. We both have a lot to answer for. We owe it to the people we’ve hurt.”

Kali looks guilty and angry, but she nods anyway.

Stiles claps his hands together. “Cool! Now, you two wait here while I talk to my compatriots. No funny ideas.” He makes an ‘I’m watching you’ gesture at them.

When he turns around, Derek and Scott have their hackles up at each other like they’re ready to go for the throat.

“Hey, hey, none of that,” Stiles says, swatting them on their respective arms. “You’re going to work together for the good of the pack. I don’t care about your stupid werewolf instincts, you’re going to make this work.”

The look on Derek’s face is heartbreaking when he says, “I can leave. You’d be better for the pack anyway.”

Stiles wishes he had his bat on hand so he could hit Derek for saying something so stupid. He settles for smacking him upside the head. “Shut up with that shit, dude. You and Scott bring different strengths to the table. You’re both useful to the pack.”

The two alphas look at Stiles like he grew a second head.

Stiles just rolls his eyes. To Derek he says, “Scott is diplomatic and idealistic. He keeps you from solving all of your problems with violence, and he’s way better at negotiations, no offense.” To Scott he says, “Derek is decisive and knowledgeable. He keeps you from waffling over what to do and knows what it’s like to be a born werewolf. You’re both equally important to the pack, so grow the fuck up and work together.”

Derek sighs. “It’s not that simple. I don’t - my instincts are all wrong. Scott isn’t pack anymore, he’s a threat. He’s a rival in my territory. I want to kill him just for touching you.” Scott nods in agreement.

“Okay, sweet and a little creepy, but I can work with it. Surely there must be Emissary magic for this exact dilemma, right?” Stiles thinks for a long moment about his ogham and trees. “Shit, fuck, oh my god, I’m so stupid. Do vines still grow on your old house?” He asks Derek, who nods. “Thank god. Okay, both of you meet me there after this shitshow is done. I have to make sure the lovebirds over there go in peacefully.”

Derek steps closer to Stiles, making Scott growl. “I’ll go with you,” he says.

Scott starts to shake his head, but Stiles cuts him off. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. Scott, you have to call your mom and let her know where you are. We’ll be done soon and Derek will drive me to his old house. Can you take the staves from the root cellar? The ones we were going to use for the treaty?”

Scott nods warily, seemingly content that Stiles isn’t going to run away with Derek.

Stiles’ dad shows up a minute after Scott left for the Hale house, panting slightly, confused expression on his face. “Wasn’t there going to be a sacrifice? Why is there so much blood?”

“It’s a long story,” Stiles says. “I’ll explain when we get home. In the meantime, these two lovely ladies have committed multiple first degree murders and need to be taken to the county jail.”

“Isn’t - wasn’t one of them a werewolf?” His dad asks, confused. “Couldn’t she just break them out.”

“Maybe,” Stiles admits. “Though I doubt they’ll want to. If either of them gets out, the pack will hunt them down and show no mercy. I think the threat is more than enough.”

Stiles’ dad shakes his head ruefully, but still cuffs both women and starts walking them back to the squad car.

Derek and Stiles move to follow. “Thank you,” Derek says softly into Stiles’ ear, “for saving me.”

“Anytime, big guy,” Stiles murmurs. “You know I’ll always come to your rescue. How many times have I saved you now? Three? Four?”

He turns to look at Derek and he swears he isn’t imagining the soft smile on his face. “Yeah. A real superhero, you are.”

“Shut up, I know you love it. I’m totally Batman, or maybe Red Hood Jason Todd.”

Derek scoffs. “You’re not cool enough to be Jason. You’re Nightwing Dick Grayson at best.”

Stiles looks at Derek reverently. “Oh my god. Oh my god, dude. I love you so much, what the fuck, I didn’t know you read comics. I’m so in awe of your comics knowledge that I’m not going to make fun of you for liking Jason Todd, the edgiest Robin.”

Derek rolls his eyes, but Stiles can see the pink tips of Derek’s ears in the moonlight that signal his blush. Is he blushing because Stiles jokingly said he loves him?

“I don’t know if I mean that yet,” Stiles blurts out, “the - the ‘love you’ thing.” He can see Derek’s face fall slightly. “But I think I could. I’m basically halfway there already, you just need to talk nerd to me some more and I’ll be there.”

Derek huffs lightly, which must be a laugh, and he wraps an arm around Stiles’ shoulder. “I’ve been halfway there for a while.”

Stiles gapes at him. “What? Why? You don't get to say that and then not explain, asshole, you have to tell me what that means.” When Derek starts walking faster, laughing a low but real laugh - a _real laugh_ \- Stiles chases him all the way to his dad’s cruiser, where the Sheriff is pushing Kali and Julia inside.

Stiles wants to follow behind his dad all the way to the office, all the way until Kali is behind bars, but he thinks about Herod, about the way Stiles can smother people in his concern, how if he follows his dad now, he’ll never stop following him.

He waves to his dad instead and lets him drive off, trusts him to call if he gets hurt. Stiles follows Derek to the Camaro and directs him to drive to the Hale house.

When they’re in the car and Stiles knows Derek can’t run away, he says, “I know that you don’t have the best relationship history,” and even with just those words Derek looks like he wants to to jump out of the moving car. “I just!” Stiles exclaims, “I just know that you’re taking a big chance on me. And I appreciate it. You deserve to be happy, and I will do everything in my power to make that happen.”

Derek looks at him for a long moment - despite the fact that he’s currently driving - before turning back to the road. In a small voice, he says, “thank you.”

Stiles puts his hand on Derek’s shoulder and squeezes tightly. They drive like that all the way to the Hale house.

* * *

Scott is waiting for them, staves in his hands and a small pile of ivy on the ground next to him. Scott is a godsend.

Stiles gets out and goes over to hug Scott. He can hear Derek growling behind him, but he ignores it for now. If the magic works like he thinks it will, that won’t be a problem for long.

The problem, of course, is that he doesn’t know if the magic will actually work. He thinks it will, especially since Scott and Derek already did have a pack bond before Scott became an alpha, but Stiles has never done anything like this before. He’s not sure anyone has.

But the thing Deaton told him, after explaining the ogham and their significance on that second night, was that magic is like art - both in that it’s about interpretation, and also in that there are no set routes to do it. Magic is primarily creativity and inspiration.

And Stiles is great at experimentation. He’s the freaking Batman of messing around with magic.

So he takes the staves, still thrumming with his power, and hands one each to Scott and Derek. “Derek, you carve Scott’s name into yours. Scott, you carve Derek’s.” Stiles rifles through his pockets and feels incredibly grateful that he didn’t change out of these sweatpants when he finds a bay leaf tucked into the folds of a pocket.

He takes the staves back and picks up a rock to carve the ogham symbols he needs - _Beitha, Luis, Huath,_ and _Gort_ \- and then hands them back. He takes a minute to move the staves around until everything is positioned how he wants - a stave in their right hand, the left wrapped around the other’s right wrist. Stiles holds the bay leaf in his fingers, ignoring Scott’s grumbled comments about bay leaves, and begins to wrap their hands and the staves in ivy.

He doesn’t make a sound while he does it, just closes his eyes and keeps his trance going, as fierce and sharp as he can make it, thinking about how much he cares for both of them, how important they are to his life, and his desire to have both of them in his pack.

When he’s done, Stiles turns to Scott. “Do you promise to take care of Derek and his pack?”

Scott looks a little taken aback at the question, but Stiles is using his serious face, so he eventually nods and says, “yes.”

Stiles turns to Derek. “Do you promise to take care of Scott and his pack?”

Derek doesn’t hesitate, but he also doesn’t look at Scott, keeping his gaze steady on Stiles. “Yes.”

“I declare you now alpha and alpha!” Stiles jokes lightly, undoing the ivy from their respective hands. “It might take a bit to take effect, so keep your stave near you - touching your skin is best. Thinking about your fellow alpha positively will help.” Stiles has no idea what the fuck he’s talking about, but he tries to sound like he’s certain. It helps that he’s maybe 80% sure that this will work, even if he really doesn’t understand the process.

Derek nods, flexes his hand where it was wrapped in ivy, and steps back. Scott does the same, not looking at Derek, but not snarling at him either. It feels like real progress.

Scott looks like he has _so many_ questions for Stiles, and Stiles really can’t blame him, but Stiles gives him a look that hopefully communicates ‘not now’.

Scott shrugs and goes to sit in the camaro. Derek watches him go before turning to Stiles. “Was that a handfasting?”

Stiles grins slyly. “It might have been.”

Derek makes a face. “I don’t want to be handfasted to Scott.”

Stiles laughs. “Is this because you think Scott’s a poopy face alpha now, or because you want to be handfasted to me?”

Derek looks away, but still says loud enough for Stiles to hear, “the latter.”

“It’s okay, big guy, handfasting isn’t actually a wedding thing necessarily, it’s about making a promise. We can get werewolf married later, after I graduate college.”

Derek looks at Stiles from the corner of his eye, lips twitching. “I’ve heard good things about two year programs, you know.”

Stiles slaps Derek on the arm, but doesn’t remove his hand where it lays as they go back to the camaro. Derek is just as grumpy looking as usual, scowling slightly at Scott, but when Stiles sits shotgun, Derek grabs his hand and places it gently on his shoulder, like a question.

Stiles squeezes his answer back, and it must be the right one, because Derek smiles at him, a real smile, maybe the first one Stiles has ever seen from him.

Stiles smiles back.

* * *

Of course, life isn’t as clean as stories. Just because Stiles managed to get Scott and Derek to work along - and he was right, they work well together, really well - and dealt with the alpha pack, doesn’t mean their lives are stress free.

For one, Stiles still doesn’t know where Herod is. When he and his dad went over to the house Herod had kept him in, it was spotless once again; the door back in its frame, the lemon Pledge removed entirely. It was as if nothing ever happened there.

For another, Scott smelled Deucalion in the root cellar when he went to get the hawthorn staves, but they have found no trace of him. It’s as if he disappeared.

Last, and maybe more concerning, Stiles still has no idea what the duck’s deal is. Is he a fragment of Stiles’ mom’s soul? Is he a fragment of _Stiles’_ soul? How was he able to summon it? Deaton is no help at all.

“It could be any of those things, Stiles. We don’t know. Magic is full of mysteries like these,” he said when Stiles had asked him. Useless!

But, though Stiles still has a lot of unknowns in his life, he is happy, really happy, for what feels like the first time since his mom died and their family fell apart.

Part of it is Derek, and that is genuinely good, but the bigger part of it is their pack, _his_ pack, a group of people he can love, protect, and care for, and who will do the same for him. When Stiles watches them crowding Derek’s apartment, chatting loudly and without reserve, it feels like home.

He goes into the preserve a week after that night; jogging idly, not even listening to music, just running to run. He comes upon the nemeton, sitting calmly in a spot of sunlight, and he takes a moment to rest on it.

The grove is doing well, the trees still not losing their leaves despite the oranges and reds in the canopy of the preserve. When Stiles looks at the stump itself, his breath catches in his chest. Right in the center, in the smallest ring, a new shoot is growing, barely an inch, but it’s there.

The light catches on its little leaves, still dewy, and Stiles lets his breath out. It’s just as beautiful as the tree in his mom’s journal. Stiles smiles and runs out of the preserve, a bounce in his step, ready to go share some good news with Derek.


	12. Sexpilogue

Stiles has been planning this night all week. Scott is taking the were-kids on a hunting trip in the forest up north; Allison, Lydia, and Danny are going clubbing; and Derek is home. Waiting for Stiles. With plenty of lube.

Honestly, Stiles should be sainted for his self control. He doesn’t even get into any accidents on his way to Derek’s from school, though it’s a close one when he barely makes a yellow light three blocks from the loft. He’s horny and desperate, who can blame him?

Derek is waiting at the fire escape door when Stiles reaches the landing, and Stiles almost shits himself he’s so startled. It’s a strange mirror of that night in the early summer, when Stiles tried to sneak into a pack gathering; instead of bitter, though, he feels excited. Warm. So, so happy when Derek smiles at him, a soft little thing just for Stiles.

Derek holds the door open and pulls Stiles into a hug before he can even shrug his backpack off. Derek has a habit of pulling Stiles’ face into the crook of his neck, as if Stiles needs to be shown how to be intimate with a werewolf. Stiles indulges him, kissing Derek’s neck and mouthing over his pulse.

Derek drags Stiles back to the spiral staircase in the corner, all the way across the loft, without letting him go. Stiles laughs against his neck, refusing to look up and see where they’re going until Derek has stopped in front of the steps.

“You’re going to have to walk yourself,” Derek says dryly.

Stiles pulls back to look Derek in the face. “What, am I too heavy for you Mr. Alpha Werewolf? Will your poor widdle arms get tired?”

Derek raises an eyebrow, gets his arms under Stiles’, and lifts him up. It kind of hurts Stiles’ armpits in a weird way, and after a few steps Stiles slaps Derek’s shoulder.

“Okay, okay,” he says, “point taken. Put me down.”

Derek complies easily, though his smirk is self satisfied. The ass.

As they start moving up the steps, Derek keeps glancing back at Stiles like he’s afraid he’ll disappear, which, hilarious. Stiles puts his hand on the small of Derek’s back in front of him - mostly because it’s the only part he can reasonably reach - and there’s a gentle softening to the line of Derek’s shoulders.

“I’m not going to run away,” Stiles says softly. “Pretty sure you can smell how much I want this, wolf boy.”

Derek looks back at Stiles, inhales, and then looks away. “You… you smell like anxiety.”

“And lust?”

Derek nods, still not looking at Stiles.

“That’s because I’m nervous, dumbass. I’ve never had sex before and I don’t want to do a bad job and make you regret being with me.”

Derek turns back to look at Stiles. “I will never regret being with you,” he says vehemently.

Stiles doesn’t have a quip or a joke to say to that. He just swallows, nods, and pushes Derek up the stairs from behind.

When they reach Derek’s room, he wraps his arms around Stiles again, rubs his face against Stiles’ cheek, and grabs at Stiles’ shirt. They aren’t even making out yet and Derek is trying to get him undressed, it’s bizarre. Stiles loves kissing, especially and exclusively kissing Derek, but Derek seems like he would be content to just touch Stiles’ skin for the rest of his life.

Stiles thinks it must be an intimacy thing. The closest you can get to a person as a human, besides bumping uglies, is to have your tongue in their mouth. For werewolves, being allowed to touch skin like this, especially the neck if Derek’s erection is to be believed, must be just as intimate. Maybe more so.

Derek is panting against Stiles’ collarbone, grinding his dick into Stiles’ thigh as he rubs his face against Stiles’ skin. It’s hot, sure, but it’s also a little weird? And _absurdly_ uncomfortable.

Stiles pushes Derek’s head down, so he’s rubbing his face against Stiles’ stomach, which feels much better than his collarbone. Derek all out fucking _moans_ when Stiles grabs his hair, so Stiles experimentally pushes Derek’s face into his stomach, as if he’s making Derek scent him, and Derek full body shudders for a long moment, before going still. Boneless.

“Did you just jizz in your pants?” Stiles asks, incredulous, but Derek’s face is pressed into Stiles’ stomach still. After a long moment, Derek nods. “Oh my god, dude, that was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. What, uh, was the catalyst for that reaction?”

Derek looks up at Stiles, face utterly relaxed, and raises an eyebrow.

“Like, was it the stomach? Was it the pushing? I need to know how I can make that happen again.”

Derek smushes his face back down into Stiles’ skin and laughs. It’s such a strange sensation, so feel Derek’s breath there. “Both,” he says when his laughter abates. “But… the pushing. Yeah.”

Stiles can feel where his own dick is pressed firmly into Derek’s sternum, can feel the faint hum of Derek’s voice down there, and it’s doing things to him. Sexy things. Extremely sexy things.

“Is this a kink thing? Do you like when I push you around because you like me taking control, or because you like me hurting you?” Stiles quickly adds, “no judgment either way, I’m not here to yuck your yums, just trying to figure out what you like.”

Derek looks up at Stiles again and his face is incredulous this time. “Yuck my yums?”

“You know,” Stiles says, trying to hold in his laughter. “Harsh your vibe. Mellow your yellow. Shame your kink.”

Derek shuts him up by surging up and kissing him, and he loves it when Derek does this. When he’s so exasperated with whatever stupid bullshit Stiles is saying that he feels he has no choice but to kiss him. Stiles has the feeling that his stupid bullshit frequency is going to skyrocket with how much he loves it.

After a long minute of making out - Derek must like it as much as the scenting, because he’s getting hard again - Derek pulls back and looks down. “Control.”

“I’m sorry?” Stiles asks, kiss stupid.

“I like - I like it when you. Take control.”

Those words are as good as viagra to Stiles. “Thank you lord,” he says, looking up, “for giving me a man as hot as this, who cares for me, and has compatible kinks. I’ll never take your name in vain again -“

Derek smacks Stiles on the shoulder and kisses him to shut him up, but Stiles can feel the small smile on Derek’s face when he rubs his thumb against the man’s cheek.

“I do,” Derek says, looking Stiles in the eye this time. “Care about you.”

Stiles is still rubbing his thumb along Derek’s cheek. “I care about you too, big guy,” he says. “And not just because we’re in your bed about to have sex. Not that I’m complaining about the present situation or anything, but, you know, the caring. Is a thing. From me. To you.”

Derek’s face looks pained, until he starts laughing and doesn’t stop, his head falling back a little bit. It’s the most beautiful thing Stiles has ever seen.

“You couldn’t have kissed me quiet and put me out of my misery?”

“It’s more fun to watch you struggle,” Derek says when he stops laughing. “Plus, I’m afraid that one day you’ll figure out how to speak while I’m kissing you, and then I’ll lose my greatest weapon.”

“Gotta learn how to put up with me. Smart.”

Derek’s smile is softer, smaller, and he’s looking Stiles in the eye again. “It’s not putting up if I like being with you.”

Stiles wants to faint. He’s sure the blood rushing alternatively to his dick and face must be depriving his brain of much needed oxygen, so maybe he will faint, but for the time being he buries his face in Derek’s neck. “You’re such a sap,” he says against Derek’s skin.

“Your sap,” Derek says against his hair.

“My sap,” Stiles agrees. When he’s no longer completely mortified with his own affection for Derek, he pulls back. “I’m horny and I still haven’t got off, so. Get on that.”

“‘Get on that’? Really Stiles?”

“Fellate me, dickhead.”

“Make me, asshole.”

Stiles isn’t sure what he’s expecting, but Derek challenging him like this, is surprisingly hot. Stiles had thought Derek would be pliant, yielding, but instead he’s going to need to be _pushed_ , and that makes it so much better.

Stiles grabs Derek’s hair again and forces his head down to Stiles’ crotch, pushing the tent in his jeans into Derek’s face. It’s an illusion, the control that he has right now; Derek could overpower him in a flash, hardly without thinking, but the illusion is hot as hell. Really, even knowing it’s fake is hot to Stiles. Derek trusts him. Derek is willing to put himself in Stiles’ hands, even if he is going to make Stiles work for it. He’s _choosing_ to let Stiles take control. There’s an Alpha werewolf’s worth of power in that body and mind, and it’s devoted entirely to him.

It’s equal parts heady and frightening.

Stiles doesn’t have time to freak out, though, because Derek is _right there_ , trying to mouth his dick through his jeans. Stiles pulls him back by the hair and leans forward. “Don’t move,” he says, and Derek stays still as Stiles lifts his hips and pushes his pants down.

Derek looks at Stiles’ dick like it’s a holy relic. Maybe it’s because Stiles has been looking at the thing for a solid 18 years, but he doesn’t really see the appeal, let alone why Derek looks like he has to control himself to keep from touching it.

Stiles holds the back of Derek’s head, holds his dick by the base, and brings the two together slowly. As soon as his mouth is close enough, Derek wraps his lips around the head of Stiles’ dick and closes his eyes like he’s enjoying a delicious meal. Which, hey, Stiles is a snack, so it holds up.

It’s nice. It’s kind of amazing. It’s kind of the best thing that Stiles has ever experienced. Derek’s mouth is the dry side of wet, warm, and his tongue on the underside of Stiles’ dick makes Stiles feel things he doesn’t know how to put words to.

“Holy god in heaven,” Stiles says, “are you some kind of professional cocksucker? Is that a job someone could have, because you would be easily in the top 10% of your field.”

Derek’s lips quirk up as he looks at Stiles with his nose in Stiles’ pubic hair, and he hums around Stiles’ dick. Holy shit.

“Holy shit, oh my god, _Derek_ ,” Stiles moans. “How is it fair that the hottest man on the earth is a champion in bed. You’re supposed to be worse at this, asshole, leave some for the rest of us.”

Derek looks like he’s going to pull off and give Stiles some lip, but Stiles doesn’t let him. He keeps his hand on the back of Derek’s head so his face is buried in Stiles’ pubes.

“None of that from you,” Stiles says. “I don’t want any back talk, here. Understand?”

Derek shudders again, but only slightly, and moans into the root of Stiles’ dick. After a moment, Derek taps Stiles’ hip and Stiles allows him to pull off. He looks _wrecked_ with his hair in disarray and his lips wet and full. The best is his eyes, though, struggling to focus on anything he’s so turned on. Stiles wants him to look like this all the time.

“Can you - do you want to facefuck me?”

Stiles has to cover his eyes with his forearm so he doesn’t keep imagining Derek’s sex face saying those words to him and come unbidden on Derek’s chin. It’s a close call.

“I have never wanted anything in my life more than I want that, but, um, I’ve never…”

“You can’t hurt me,” Derek says simply. “If I can’t breathe, or need you to stop, I’ll tap your leg. If you need me to do something, just tell me.”

Stiles breathes out through his mouth, forearm still over his eyes. “We should probably like, get a better position, right? Like, me standing up?”

Derek rolls over so they can move to the edge of the bed, and Stiles rests a hand on his tattoo, feeling the warm skin. Derek turns to look at him, face confused.

“Just - I like seeing it. Your tattoo.”

Derek’s smile is bittersweet. “Thanks,” he says quietly, and goes to kneel by the side of the bed.

Derek’s bed is gorgeous. Stiles doesn’t really know bed sizing, but he figures it must be a queen. Something royal. It’s big enough to fit Stiles _and_ Derek comfortably, with space between them and room to spare. It’s like twice the size of Stiles’ bed. He thinks that he’d like to sleep in this bed every night, if he could.

He won’t say that to Derek, though, because he’s afraid it’d be too much, too quickly. Sometimes Stiles is frightened by the intensity of his own feelings, and the doubt that Derek feels this much, this quickly, about him.

It’s fine.

Derek is waiting patiently for him by the side of the bed, kneeling, and Stiles’ heart swells. He wants to say something, show his affection, but it’s too much, too quickly, so he just lets his hand fall to Derek’s cheek. He hopes the touch can communicate what he’s too coward to say in words.

Derek leans into the touch, eyes locked on Stiles’ dick. He has to lean down slightly to fit his mouth around it again, but he does so without Stiles’ hand forcing him, without any hesitation. He licks up the vein of Stiles’ dick, sucks him into his mouth, and gets to work on Stiles’ erection again.

It’s awkward, of course it is. Stiles isn’t sure when he should start with the face fucking, how he should do it, but Derek gets his hands on Stiles’ hips and pushes then forward into his mouth and then it’s just inertia.

Stiles puts his hands on Derek’s head as he moves his dick in and out, and it’s like the world’s biggest, cuddliest fleshlight. Like Derek has given up all control for him and is letting Stiles have his way with him. It must be kind of embarrassing, to be used like that, but that just makes it even hotter to Stiles.

He doesn’t last long. Not more than ten strokes, and he’s pulling out, jacking off with his dick in Derek’s face. They didn’t talk about how they wanted this to go, but Stiles knows from personal experimentation that come tastes _awful_ , and he doesn’t want to expose Derek’s mouth to that.

Derek himself looks just as dazed from arousal as he did before, and he’s not complaining when Stiles comes and shoots rope all over his face. Stiles may or may not have been saving himself for Derek, with the knowledge that they were going to have the night to themselves, for the past week.

Derek’s hand is on his dick - it’s such a pretty dick, is there nothing about this man that isn’t gorgeous, what the fuck - and when Stiles idly moves a finger through the come on Derek’s face, pushing it around and into Derek’s mouth, his eyes roll back and he comes onto Stiles’ socks and the floor of his room.

Stiles starts to wipe the cum off, but Derek grabs his hand. “Don’t,” he says. “I like it. I want it to stay.”

Stiles gapes at him. “We have two hours until dinner. Are you really going to walk around with a facial the entire time?”

“I will if I want to,” Derek says stubbornly. “No one is going to see but you.”

“Won’t everyone smell it on you when they get back?”

“I certainly hope so,” Derek says, impishly. Stiles groans, pushes him over, and starts pulling his pants back on.

“We can have round two tonight after dinner. Let’s go watch a movie, you big dweeb.”

Derek follows him down, like he always does. Like Stiles hopes he always will.


End file.
